


Ripples in the Force

by maiar1025



Series: Movements of the Force [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, F/M, Magic, Movie: Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, The Force
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-06-28 17:59:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15712227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maiar1025/pseuds/maiar1025
Summary: Every person has a destiny, the fixed result of their actions and choices. Fate is an action a person makes which is mandatory for their destiny to be realized. How will the fated meeting of Jedi Knight Harry Potter and Queen Amidala of the Naboo sweep across the destiny of the Galactic Republic? These movements of fate are the Ripples in the Force.





	1. Yep, it's gonna be one of those missions!

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Star Wars. I make no money off of this.**

**A/N:** **I just have to warn you that I am simply writing this to get this idea out of my head. This idea has been plaguing me for, quite literally,** _**years** _ **. I don't have an update schedule and I won't post new chapters until I am happy with them. I will stop writing again for a time if I find it is drawing too much of my focus away from other more important aspects of my life. I will try not to simply drop the story. If this happens, I will try to tell my readers about the period of hiatus and restart when I am satisfied I can healthily continue.**

**Please remember, this will only be written in my scant free time. I only ask that, if you like this story, please be patient.**

**This is a cross-post with my Fanfiction.net account: Olorin_The_Maiar**

 

**Thank you,**

**Olorin**

* * *

**Chapter 1: Yep, it's Gonna be One of _Those_  Missions!**

Harry Potter paused to center himself.

_Breathe in._

He was alone: a single mote of consciousness floating in the warm embrace of the void. All that is-was-will be is contained within himself. In this moment of self-awareness, he is confronted by the paradoxical nature of his own existence: I exist alone, according to my own psycho-perception, yet I am caused to exist.

_Breathe out._

His consciousness explodes outwards. The self-aware mote which had been so enthralled by the discovery that it actually existed is confronted by the reality that it is but one of an untold number of similar motes flowing onward in an unending cascade of cause and effect.

_Pause._

There, among the eddies and currents of time-space-causality, Harry finds the deviances in the chaotic flow of individual choices. Certain choices are guided to outcomes which preserve the over-all progression and expansion of reality. In the seeming chaos, there is order. Naturally, the universe would devolve into entropic decay. The guiding hand in the progression of reality could only be attributed to an outside Force maintaining the delicate balance needed to sustain life.

This was the guiding Force which Harry served. The ancients of his species called it Magic and it was what had originally deviated his race away from the base human stock. The Force moved through all existence. It was life and it was death. It created and it destroyed. It was the initial cause which started this cascading awareness-action which he called reality. To Harry, however, the most important aspect of the Force was that it forever strived to preserve that which it had caused.

Jedi Knight Harry Potter's eyes snapped open as his awareness returned on the onset of his next breath. The Force's answer to his unasked question was clear. He was to act. Not now, but soon. Very soon.

The Queen's procession took a few more steps towards him. He could sense the two Human Jedi concealed on the bridge above him: a master and his padawan. There was another presence there too, a semi-aquatic sentient of some sort.  _Mon Calamari? Quarren? Nautolan? Gungan?_ Yes, it was a Gungan.

The procession took another step.

NOW!

Harry brought his arms up under his cloak and extended his mind through the Force. It reacted gleefully to his presence, swirling about his consciousness, and lent him its power as it found that his purpose and its own were one in the same.

Harry wrapped his presence around the battle droids who were escorting the Queens party. He clenched his fists, his mind linking the action to his spiritual extension. There was a screech of plastics and metals as the droid's processors, sensor arrays, and communications relays were crushed into mangled balls of scrap.

The knight could feel the surprise of the witnesses ( _"That was quite impressive master." "I agree, Obi-Wan, but that was not me."_ ) reverberate in the Force accompanied by the pleased purr which he associated with the completion of an action it had prompted.

As the Queen's entourage scrambled for the fallen droid's blasters, Harry gently nudged his cloak with the Force to allow himself to be seen and began to walk steadily towards the group from his hiding spot in the shadows. He was surprised to find that it was the group of handmaidens which spotted him first. They shifted slightly to provide a more accurate coverage area for the Queen in response to a new potential threat.

Interesting.

These handmaidens were acting more like an elite brigade of trained guards than the so-called security force which had finally noticed his presence and had brought their new blasters to bear upon him.

This begged a question. If they are trained security personnel, why did they allow their asset to walk around in such eye-catching clothing? They had been given approximately eighteen hours from the beginning of the invasion to the point at which the Queen had finally been captured in the Palace of Theed. He knew this time to be accurate as he had spent the entirety of the time collecting evidence for his former master and her Council of First Knowledge. The elaborate costume only made sense if…

He checked the lines of sight again.

 _Decoy._  There was one handmaiden directly behind the Queen, and yet still within the area of full coverage. It was rather clever. No one would expect such a deception from as pacifistic government as Naboo's. Well, no one who was not paranoid.

Unfortunately for the deception, Harry had just spent over a year commanding one side of a bloody civil war and still had yet to settle his nerves back to their peacetime levels.

This, however, did not matter. He wasn't about to blow the Queen's cover any time soon. It would only make his job that much more difficult.

"Your Highness," Harry addressed the decoy, "I am Jedi Knight Harry Potter. We must get you to cover. There are still droid patrols in the area," He gestured to an alleyway he had scouted beforehand. The decoy scrutinized the street before giving a decisive not to the one who seemed to be in charge of the more visible security forces.

Seeing the Royal party move in the direction indicated, Harry turned back to the bridge. Looking directly at the spot where the Jedi master and his companions were still concealed and gave the chopping gesture which was the Jedi hand-sign for  _All Clear_.

It took a moment, but soon the two Humans and the Gungan were at street level, even if Harry did have to cushion the Gungan's fall with the Force.

"I am Knight Harry Potter," he gave the traditional bows of greeting from a knight to a master and his padawan and received the appropriate bows in return, "May I assume you are the Ambassadors sent by the High Council for negotiations?"

"Yes. We are the Ambassadors the High Council sent at the behest of the Supreme Chancellor. Although, can we actually be Ambassadors if we never actually entered negotiations?" this last comment seemed to be more rumination than an actual question, "Either way, I am Master Qui-Gon Jinn and this is my padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and our guide, Jar Jar Binks," he acknowledged each in turn, "I was unaware the Order had any other Knights in this system."

A pulse through the Force warned the three Jedi as they turned in unison towards the direction of a droid patrol approaching them from a cross street.

"I believe," Harry said as he wrapped his presence around the fallen droids, "that we should relocate." He raised his hands and the destroyed droids followed the motion into the air. With a few quick shooing motions, he had the cheap pieces of scrap hiding themselves behind carved balcony rails, stone crenelations, and tiled chimneys. Satisfied with his work, Harry turned back to find a mixed reaction.

Jar Jar the Gungan was openly staring, mouth hanging open. Kenobi was hiding behind the Mask of Serenity taught to younglings back at the Temple, but Harry caught the padawan's surprise in the widening of his eyes. Master Jinn simply fixed Harry with an amused smile and a raised eyebrow. The knight resisted the urge to scratch the back of his head in a nervous gesture. He was never comfortable about people making a fuss over his power. Jinn must have felt his discomfort, for his smile only grew.

"Hem," Harry cleared his throat and immediately suppressed a shudder. That had sounded far too similar to that Hutt of a witch, Umbridge, for comfort, "I believe we should be going, Master," he indicated the alley down which the Queen's party disappeared.

"I'm beginning to have a good feeling about this mission," Jinn said with a nod and started after the Queen.

"Are you feeling alright, Master?" Harry heard Kenobi mumble as he passed, Binks following with his odd swaying gait.

Harry sighed.

This was turning out to be one of  _those_  missions. Truly, he should have expected it. He was a Potter. Without fail, every mission eventually turned out to be one of  _those_  missions.

He followed Binks, passing out of the line of sight of the street just as the next droid patrol arrived upon the scene, oblivious as to what had happened just minutes before.

* * *

Padme Naberrie was pensive. This whole situation simply didn't make sense. While she did not like to think ill of the dead, there was more to this blockade, this  _invasion_ , than her predecessor's dirty dealings and greed. Even the Trade Federation's public excuse of protesting the taxation of trade routes did not make any sense. That excuse would be a direct attack upon their senate representation. As far as she knew, Senator Palpatine had gone so far as to soften the blow to the Trade Federation by introducing tax incentives for trade in the Outer Rim territories into the bill. He was a reconciler, not a revolutionary. This stank of a third party. This stank of special interests. Somebody was pulling Nute Gunray's strings. The question was, 'Who?'

The clatter of blasters being readied drew her attention to the mouth of the alleyway.

Three new figures had joined Knight Potter in the few minutes of his absence: two Humans and one which she thought was a Gungan, despite never having met one of the reclusive race. The Humans appeared to be fellow Jedi. Both wore the distinctive brown Jedi robes similar to those she had glimpsed under Knight Potter's dark and slightly shimmering cloak. Unlike Knight Potter, these two had their hoods lowered.

The elder of the two led the small party forward. It seemed even Knight Potter deferred to the man as he took up a post to the side, keeping his line of sight towards the mouth of the alley clear, but still close enough to join in conversation if engaged.

She drew her attention back to the elder Jedi and used the remaining few seconds of his approach to try to gain some insight into the man. She knew appearances could be deceiving, but it was all she had at the moment.

Human. Indeterminate middle age. Brown Hair. Grey in the beard and at the temples.  _Stress? Experience?_  Calm brown eyes.  _Kindness? Compassion? Not enough data._  Beginnings of laugh lines around mouth.  _Smiles frequently and genuinely due to similar laugh lines around nose and eyes._ Relaxed posture.  _Unconcerned of attack or confident in current security?_

Her analysis halted as the Jedi came to a stop in front of Rabe, her chosen double for the day. He gave her a quick bow.

"Your Highness, I am Master Qui-Gon Jinn and this is my padawan learner, Obi-Wan Kenobi. We are the Ambassadors for the Supreme Chancellor."

"Your negotiations seemed to have failed, Ambassador!" While Sio Bibble was a competent governor of Theed, he only possessed a limited amount of patience. It seemed that being marched around his city to show the people of Theed that their government had fallen had used up what little he had left.

"The negotiations never took place," it seemed that Master Jinn's patience had yet to be depleted, "Your Highness, we must make contact with the Republic." Captain Panaka, the current head of her public security detail stepped forward.

"They've knocked out all our communications."

Padme repressed a sigh. Quarsh Panaka was a good man and would defend his Queen with his life, but he was not the most tactically minded man on the planet. When she became Queen, the Volunteer Security Forces were somewhat of a joke. Due to the pacifistic stance of the planet, the majority of the Security Forces never saw any combat. Most of the Volunteers were made up of young upper class heirs attempting to make political connections or meet a wealthy heiress. Anyone of actual combat readiness was usually shuffled into space defense or the garrison upon their moon, which sometimes sees upswings in the production of the illegal drug, Spice, due to its isolation.

One of her first actions as Queen was to dismiss any officer who had participated in the corruption and graft of her predecessor, King Ars Veruna. She had only been left with two choices for the head of the Security Forces: Quarsh Panaka and Gregar Typho. Together, the three had decided that Captain Typho, with his years fighting against illegal Spice miners, would take command with Captain Panaka as his secondary officer. Typho, unfortunately, had recently lost an eye and half of a leg in recent fighting, so she had sent him off-world for military-grade cybernetic replacements and allowed Panaka to fill the leadership role temporarily.

That was a month before the blockade. All in all, Panaka was trying. He was simply out of his depth.

"Do you have any transports?" Padme was grateful to Master Jinn. There was no condescension in his voice, no incredulity. It was stated in such a way that Panaka would not notice his oversight of the obvious.

"In the main hanger. This way!" Panaka gave a hand sign to the other Volunteers, who rounded the group up and began moving.

Padme repressed another sigh. The captain had not even glanced at Rabe for approval before relocating.

It did not escape Padme's notice that Knight Potter shadowed  _her_ , not her decoy, as they moved out. Thankfully, in the time it took to reach the hangar, she was able to maneuver herself so that Knight Potter's vigil at her side would not be as obvious. Now he was in situated in such a way that he was in a similar proximity to Rabe.

Captain Panaka halted the party at the interior doors to the royal hangar. Both he and Master Jinn quickly looked inside.

"There are too many of them," Panaka whispered urgently to the Jedi beside him. Jinn simply shook his head.

"That won't be a problem," he turned to Rabe, "Your Highness, under these circumstances, I suggest you come to Coruscant with us."

Padme's mind flew into action, weighing the possibilities.

She could stay planet-side. This was her original plan. It was decided, however, upon the assumption that there were personal ambassadors of the Supreme Chancellor working to force a settlement. She had thought Gunray's invasion was a last ditch effort to force his terms upon Naboo while simultaneously attempting to stall the political process. From what she overheard of the hushed conversation held on their way to the hangar between Panaka and Jinn, Gunray went so far as to try to assassinate the master and apprentice (where Knight Potter came from, she still had no idea). This fact alone sent up major warning flags concerning her fate, should she stay.

Her only other option seemed to be to recapture a ship and run the blockade. While dangerous, she did see advantages to weigh against the risks. Should she make it to Coruscant, there were many political processes she could file to hobble the Trade Federation in their occupation of her planet. While Naboo's pacifistic constitution prohibited her from filing a Writ of Observance for the Trade Federation's unilateral actions against Naboo (the Senate classified these as minor Declarations of Hostilities), she could directly introduce a Mandate of Action to the floor of the Senate as a sovereign Head of State without needing the approval of an investigative committee. Should the vote go her way, that alone would be enough to halt Gunray as the Republic Navy would intervene to stop hostilities between two member states.

Making her decision, Padme squeezed a pressure pad sewn into the lining of her robes. This sent a signal to a receiver hidden in her decoy's headdress to notify Rabe that she wished to deviate from her previous instructions. Rabe would then prompt Padme with a simple statement to determine the new directions from her Queen's response.

"Either choice presents a great risk," Rabe turned to Padme and the other handmaidens, "to us all."

"We are brave, your Highness," Padme knew Rabe well enough to know that her words had the intended effect.

"Then we shall plead our case to the Senate," Rabe gave Jinn a nod of assent, "We place ourselves in your hands," Jinn returned the nod and beckoned Potter and his apprentice towards the entrance to the hangar. From her position, Padme could barely make out their hushed conversation.

"Forty-five droids," Jinn began, "Four battle groups of ten; one corporal droid relay with each group slaved to one lieutenant droid stationed at the royal yacht; two groups at the base of the yacht, one guarding the captured flight crews, and one on roving patrol. Will your earlier trick work again?" Potter shook his head.

"If they were all together? Sure. As spread out as they are now? No. We will just have to do it the old fashioned way. Besides," Padme thought she could make out the shadow of a grin in the dark recesses of Potter's cowl, "I wouldn't want to deprive you and  _Padawan_  Kenobi of all the fun, now would I?" Jinn chuckled and Kenobi rolled his eyes with a good-natured smile. Padme could see that there was some history between the knight and padawan that she was missing.

"How thoughtful of you," Jinn glanced around the door into the hangar once more, "Corusca Gambit?"

"We should probably use a Protocol Ruse to get into position, first," Kenobi chimed in helpfully.

"Hmm. It  _will_  definitely be stealthier than a frontal assault," Potter agreed, "I can take the flight personnel. We could meet in the middle with the roving patrol."

"My thoughts exactly," Jinn turned back to the royal party, "Your Highness, we have a plan but it will require us to show absolutely no hostility until we are in position."

"And how will we know when we are to act, Master Jedi?"

"The first droid to fall must be the lieutenant droid. It is a direct relay to the command sphere in orbit. We will use a flaw in the programming of the droids to get within striking distance, after which I will destroy the lieutenant. Once I do, whoever among you with weapons may open fire upon the droids." Padme pressed a different pressure strip in her sleeve to denote her assent to the plan.

"I do not think that we should take risks with her Highness's life," snarled Captain Panaka. Rabe, however, did not allow the captain to build up steam and interrupted him before he was able to say something he could regret.

"We must place our trust in the Jedi, Captain. They have much more experience in the art of battle than we," Rabe fixed Jinn with her most piercing stare. The Jedi was unaffected, "We place our lives in your hands," Padme noticed that Rabe had not used the royal 'we' but rather included the entirety of the party in her statement. This nuance, it seemed, was not lost on Jinn. He nodded.

"Knight Potter, Padawan Kenobi and myself shall go first. Next shall be the guards. Behind them will come everyone without a weapon. When the combat begins and there is cover immediately available, be free to use it. If not, try to stay behind myself or Padawan Kenobi. We will deflect away blaster fire which comes your way. Knight Potter will be freeing the captured flight crews."

"Your Highness," Panaka pleaded, "You should not be put in such danger!" Potter stepped forward.

"There are still patrols roving these halls," the cloaked knight explained, "Once the fighting starts, the droids will send out a local distress signal when the cannot contact the command sphere through their lieutenant. It will be only a few minutes before reinforcements arrive to investigate the signal. To prevent their interference, I will be sealing these doors as soon as we cross the threshold. We must have you inside when that happens." Padme once again signaled an affirmative to Rabe.

"Risks must be taken, should great need arise," Padme's decoy glanced at Captain Panaka, "I have faith in the Jedi," she brought her attention back to the Jedi master, "Lead on, Master Jinn."

There was a slight jostling as everyone moved into positions. To Padme's surprise, Governor Bibble relieved one of the security volunteers of an extra blaster and hid it in the folds of his over-robe. She distantly remembered reading that he had spent some time as a security volunteer before entering government service.

Finally in place, the party strode through the partially open hangar doors. Sure enough, as soon as the last handmaiden crossed the threshold, the great blast doors slid shut. The heavy  _CLANG_  which signaled the door's lock engaging was accompanied by a soft squelching noise which she nearly missed in the echo of the hangar. Confused, she glanced at Potter just in time to see what appeared to be a thin length of wood disappear up one of his sleeves.

Before she knew it, they were nearing the two droid patrols stationed around her royal yacht. Wordlessly, Potter veered off to their left and made his way towards the group of captured flight personnel. He had only crossed half the distance to his targets when they were finally hailed by the yellow-banded lieutenant droid.

"Halt! Identify yourselves."

"I am an Ambassador of the Supreme Chancellor," Master Jinn explained in his usual pleasant manner, "I am taking these people with me to Coruscant."

"Where are you taking them?" The droid seemed to either have a short circuit in its processor or the Trade Federation used the cheapest Artificial Intelligence that it could find in its battle droids. Padme thought the latter was most likely the case.

"To Coruscant," even the unflappable Jinn's voice held a note of incredulity.

"Coruscant? Uhh… that doesn't compute… uhh… You're under arrest!" With that, the Jedi sprang into action.

In the blink of an eye, Master Jinn had ignited his weapon and bisected the lieutenant with the glowing green blade. Padawan Kenobi, too, had ignited his own blade and began to reflect the blaster bolts which had now begun to fall upon them back at the droids which had fired them.

Padme could definitely see a similar martial style in both master and apprentice. They both seemed to prefer a reflective defense rather than close quarters combat. In her peripheral vision, she could see that Knight Potter preferred quite a different style of fighting. He had, quite literally, leaped into the fray. Vaulting over the closest droid, he grabbed it by its neck and proceeded to use his momentum to spin the grappled droid around, smashing it into its neighbor with a tremendous amount of force.

At this point, chaos had broken out. Padme was quickly huddled with Rabe behind Master Jinn by her handmaidens. The security volunteers had fanned out behind the master and apprentice and were attempting to pick off droids from the group in front of them. Governor Bibble, however, had found cover behind one of the landing struts of the yacht and was picking off droids from the roving patrol, which was now running towards them, with his borrowed blaster. By the time the patrol arrived to reinforce the main force, the aging statesman had winnowed down the group of droids from eleven to five.

Before she knew it, Knight Potter had entered the primary skirmish, seemingly finished with his paltry force of eleven droids. He was a flurry of fists and feet. Padme noticed that very rarely were the Knights strikes aimed to actually damage the droids. They seemed to be primarily aimed at deviating or obstructing the droids line of fire, causing their shots to be directed into the chasses of their compatriots.

Then, just as abruptly as it began, it was finished. The last droid fell to Padawan Kenobi's lightsaber and everyone drew a sigh of relief. A quick inventory told Padme that the gravest injury was to one of the volunteers whose thigh was grazed by a stray blaster bolt.

There was a moment of calm before nearly everyone broke into action. Panaka began barking orders to the volunteers to begin prepping the yacht for takeoff. Knight Potter rounded up the liberated flight crews and began relaying some of the reconnaissance he had done on the defenses the Trade Federation had installed around Theed so that they could make it out of the capitol's airspace safely.

"Your Highness," Padme turned to see Governor Bibble addressing her decoy, "I cannot go with you. There is nothing you can gain by my presence. I will stay and prepare for your return." Padme signaled yet another affirmative to Rabe.

"If that is what you feel you must do, then I shall not stop you. Stay safe, Governor. We shall need your help restoring our people after this tragedy has ended."

Padme decided that Rabe was  _very_  good at this. That was definitely something she might have said in her Amidala persona. The Queen realized that she was going to have to by her double something  _very_  nice when this was all over in thanks.

With a short bow, the governor excused himself to ready his own liberated starfighter.

Beside her, Padme felt more than heard the yacht's engines purr to life. The mostly inaudible frequencies they produced made her bones itch at this close proximity.

"Your Highness," Captain Panaka drew Padme's attention away from the scurrying starfighter pilots as he addressed Rabe, "we are ready to leave."

Indeed they were. All three Jedi and the yacht's flight crew had already boarded.

"Then let us depart, Captain," Rabe replied as she strode up the gangway, "and pray that when we return, we will have the means to save our people."

Captain Panaka followed the girl he believed to be his Queen into the ship. His true Queen advanced a few steps behind him, surrounded by her loyal bodyguards.

As the gangway closed behind her, Padme couldn't help but echo Rabe's prayer.

'Please, let me be able to save my people!'

* * *

**AN: I always thought the introduction of midi-chlorians kind of ruined the mysticism of the Force, so I will try to explore some of the mystic aspects of the Jedi Order and how they relate to the midi-chlorians. The centering exercise Harry does is just a little foray into that. If you have any suggestions on the Jedi's mystic side, feel free to PM me. I can't promise that I will respond directly, but I will try to post something in response at the end of my chapters.**

**Yes, I made Governor Bibble a little more awesome than he appears in the films. Sue me. I did it because I think his beard is awesome.**

 


	2. Conversations Over Tea

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Star Wars. I make no money off of this.**

 

* * *

**Chapter 2: Conversations over Tea**

Padme couldn't sleep. She couldn't stop playing the last twenty-four hours over and over in her head. It seemed like a dream sometimes: the invasion and capture, her rescue and escape into space, running the blockade and the damage to the ship. Now they were limping their way to a gangster-controlled desert outpost in hopes of hiding themselves within the underbelly of the Republic while they attempted to repair their ship. Quite honestly, it almost felt like one of the five-credit romance novels Corde read when she thought no one was looking.

Deciding that there was no use remaining in bed, Padme silently pushed back her blankets and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She hissed quietly as her feet touched the metal floor; it was ice cold. She did not dare activate a light, lest she wake her roommates and they stop her late night wanderings. Instead, she searched blindly with her feet, lightly tapping the floor around her bedside until her right foot came in contact with the leather slippers she usually wore around the ship. She slipped them on with a practiced movement as she donned the simple robe which had been set out for tomorrow's role as a handmaiden.

Gingerly, she wove her way through the tangle of her handmaiden's limbs as she made her way to the door. Normally, they would have slept in the guardroom next door, but that had been lent to their three Jedi saviors for the duration of their escape. Sabe and Eritae had slept on the floor on either side of her bed, Corde had curled up in a chair in front of the (now-locked) door leading to the guardroom and Rabe was sprawled across the entrance to the main hallway. Padme hiked up the hem of her robe so as to not wake her double before she leaned over the sleeping handmaiden to disengage the security protocols on the hallway door. As the door slid open, the soft light from the hallway illuminated the girl who had masqueraded as Queen Amidala for the past day. Padme bit back a giggle as she saw that the normally intense girl was drooling on the blaster rifle she had clutched to her chest like a security blanket.

The real Queen stepped over her cousin and loyal body guard and re-engaged the door from the outside. As the door closed with a near-silent hiss, she heard Rabe mutter something rather unflattering about a gooberfish and rolled onto her other side. She sighed into the closed door. A part of her hated herself for allowing her family to get caught up in this mess. The twins, Rabe and Sabe, were the daughters of her mother's own twin brother and Corde and Eritae were the daughters of her father's elder sister. The five of them had always been close growing up, living only a few streets apart in Theed's Garden District and it had been their idea for the 'Handmaiden Deception', as they called it, after the assassination of King Veruna. She had originally put up a token resistance, but was secretly relieved to have her friends and family close at hand to help her bear the responsibilities of Queen. Now, she couldn't help but feel worse for it.

Turning, Padme walked down the short hallway that ran down the residential deck of the royal yacht to the communal lounge. She hoped that the galley beyond the lounge had been stocked before the invasion. A warm cup of mooja juice was always her mother's remedy for sleepless nights. She thought she could use a little comfort and nostalgia to calm her nerves. When Padme activated the door to her intended destination, she was surprised to find it already occupied.

The unfamiliar figure was hunched over a steaming cup of golden liquid. The young man's unruly tangle of black hair had fallen forward to conceal his face, but Padme could make out the shape of an elongated and pointed ear through his dark locks.

'Definitely not human, then,' Padme thought to herself.

The man inhaled the vapor of the liquid slowly and sat back in his seat with a contented sigh.

Padme noticed that his facial features, while not as noticeably different as his ears, were also slightly foreign to the human species. This was not to say that the girl thought him ugly. It was quite to the contrary. Padme found the near-human rather dashing. The young man's high cheek bones, strong jaw line and aquiline nose gave him a distinctly aristocratic appearance while the faint, but jagged, scar which arched like lightning from his hairline above his left eye gave him a roguish flair.

The young man opened his eyes.

_Oh!_

Padme's mouth suddenly felt very dry as she found herself staring into the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen. To call them green would be a gross injustice. There were countless shades which radiated from away from the young man's pupil like the rays of a fiery sun. No two threads were colored exactly the same and yet many were so close that they could not help but be identified by the same name. Underlying it all, just barely peeking through the hues of emeralds and grass were the most delicate threads of gold.

A soft cough made Padme realize that she was staring. She fought the embarrassed blush that threatened to rise upon he cheeks and hoped that the dim lighting of the galley would mask any slips of her control.

"Would you care to join me, Your Highness?" Padme's eyes widened at the identification and she quickly scanned her surroundings to make sure that no one else overheard the revelation, "I am sure it would be preferable to standing in a doorway until we reach Tatooine," the corner of the young man's mouth quirked upwards in a wry smile and she finally placed his voice. This was Knight Potter. He was a good deal younger than she had thought. At most, he could only be a handful of years older than her.

"Please, Knight Potter, call me Padme," it was a command, not a request, but she accepted the offered chair anyway.

"If you insist on informality, "the knight gave a put-upon sigh, "please, call me Harry." The quirk of his mouth melted into a genuine smile and Padme felt her stomach flutter. The queen decided that she officially  _hated_  what puberty had done to her. It had never been this bad with Pablo.

"Would you like some tea?" he asked, indicating the steaming cup in his hands, "I've always found it helps me relax after a stressful day."

Padme glanced over at the dry goods storage locker and rethought her beverage choice. If she was going to have company, maybe the nostalgia of a childhood favorite was not strictly appropriate.

"Thank you, that would be lovely," Padme did think that the soothing floral aroma that the liquid was giving off was rather delightful.

Movement on the counter of the galley caught her eye. A cup had removed itself from a cupboard and filled itself with boiling water from a tap on the wall. A small cloth packet rose into the air from an open leather belt satchel on the counter and immersed itself in the hot water. Slowly, as if not to spill its precious liquid cargo, the cup floated towards the small table until it came to a stop in front of her.

"Thank you," Padme said, blinking in surprise. She took the cup and felt its weight gradually increase as (she suspected) the Jedi released it from his hold. Harry took a sip of his own tea and Padme automatically followed suit…

…and promptly burnt her tongue.

Foregoing dignity, the Queen spat the tea back into the cup and hastily placed it down on the table, not caring that a small portion of its contents sloshed onto the metal tabletop. She could hear Harry chuckling into his own cup as she dabbed at her injured tongue with a napkin from the dispenser on the wall.

"You could have warned me," Padme said, her aching tongue causing her to stumble over her words.

"I am sorry," the Knight neither looked nor sounded contrite, "I had thought it was obvious. The water was steaming and the cup would have been hot to the touch."

Padme looked down at the cup and saw that it was still steaming heavily. She ran her fingertips over its polymer side and found it to be very hot, nearly to the point of discomfort. The girl felt rather embarrassed that she didn't notice it before she had made a fool of herself. She blamed Harry; those eyes of his were too distracting. Desperately wanting to move away from the fact that she had just injured herself due to distraction, she frantically tried to think of something to change the subject with. The first topic to come to mind was something which had nagged at her for the past few hours.

"Why are you here?"

The question seemed to catch the Jedi by surprise.

"I was already on Naboo when the blockade was put in place. My former Master contacted me when Master Jinn and Padawan Kenobi were sent to negotiate. She told me to aid in your protection should the negotiations fail. At the time, I had thought she simply didn't trust Nute Gunray, but it seemed her concerns had some merit," Harry shrugged but Padme wasn't fooled. From everything she had heard about the Order, Jedi's didn't seem to just go on vacations.

"But why were you on Naboo in the first place? The Naboo have a warm relationship with the Jedi. We would have welcomed you at the palace, had we known you were here," Harry looked somewhat sheepish and Padme knew she had found what the Jedi had been hiding.

"I was on what the Masters call a 'Meditative Retreat'. I was supposed to find a quiet planet to spend time in reflection away from conflict and politics," Harry shivered, "especially politics. It was simply my luck that I choose a planet on the brink of invasion."

"It sounds like you were being told to sit in a corner and stay out of trouble," Padme said with a quiet giggle, thinking the idea rather ridiculous.

"That's exactly what it was," Harry replied with a slight huff of amusement and Padme felt her smile slide off her face, "Every so often, a Jedi completes his or her mission correctly but there are unforeseen political repercussions. Usually, the Jedi in question is sent upon 'Meditative Retreat' while the Order sorts out the mess. It keeps the Jedi in question from unknowingly making matters worse and gives the Order a handy excuse to explain away his or her absence."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make light of your situation," the Queen tried to backpedal. She hadn't made this big of a gaff since she had asked her finance minister's wife when her expected due date was. In the end, Padme had found out that the woman hadn't actually been pregnant.

"Don't worry," Harry said with an understanding smile, "the Force takes pleasure in making my missions go belly-up in the worst possible way," he paused for a moment, "or best, depending upon who you ask. They usually turn out well, though. You may want to remove your teabag. It should be ready to drink."

Padme blinked at the abrupt change in topic. Looking down, she saw that the water had taken on a deep golden hue and was no longer billowing steam. Following Harry's instructions, she removed the small cloth packet from the liquid and took a tentative sip. When the heavy floral flavor washed over her tongue, tension which had, until now, gone unnoticed lifted from her shoulders.

"This is very good, thank you."

They sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, quietly sipping their drinks. Padme wanted to move on to a different subject, but for some reason, she couldn't bring herself to do it. Her instincts were urging her to investigate further about the reason for this so-called 'Meditative Retreat'. For some reason, it felt like she  _needed_  to know more. Logically speaking, she recognized that it could be very rude to delve into such a subject, but the little urges of her instincts had never led her astray before.

"I'm sorry to bring this up again. You don't have to answer if you don't want to but…" she trailed off trying to formulate the question in the least rude way possible. In the end she needn't have bothered, as Harry asked the question himself.

"Why was I sent on retreat?" the queen nodded, relieved that it didn't seem to be a sore subject for Harry, "Well, the short story is that I was elected as the sovereign monarch of my home system."

Padme slowly blinked as what the Jedi said registered in her mind.

She blinked again.

_WHAT?!_

"I guess that a more entailed explanation is required," Harry said with a chuckle. Padme could feel the blood rush to her face as she realized that she must have voiced her thoughts in her shock.

"The not-as-short answer is that I was caught up in a civil war in my home system which has been fought off-and-on for forty years. It was mainly contained to a single planet, Earth, but after the leader of the light-side faction was killed, the opposing faction quickly took control of the planetary government and used their forces to launch attacks on the other planetary governments in an attempt to cleanse the system of any they thought  _unpure_ ," Harry spat the last word with such venom that it caused Padme to shiver. "I helped band together those planets under attack and the resistance movement on Earth. United, we defeated the insurrectionists and restored peace to the system."

"So they made you king for leading the war?"

"The title is Merlin, actually," Harry said with a humorless chuckle, "but no, they didn't. In all actuality, they did it by accident," Padme raised an eyebrow in question.  _That_ was something she had never heard of before, "In the Sol System, heroes are very influential. If you are associated with someone who did something important, even if that someone doesn't agree with you, your opinion carries more weight," Padme opened her mouth to interject, indignant at the affront to her beloved democratic system but Harry held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture.

"I agree with you. It is a horrible system. That is why both the Order and I wanted to get out of the situation as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, one of the planets got wind of this before I was able to leave. They elected me as a figurehead ruler with no real power in an attempt to force me to stay in the system and back their agenda for rebuilding. It wasn't long before the other planets got wind of this and did the same. This would have been fine with the Order as there are other Jedi in figurehead governmental positions," Harry rubbed his face and gave a tired sigh, "The problems arose when someone dug up an ancient law which was still in effect for all the system's governments."

"In the event that one individual united the system in peace, then that person would be a prospective candidate for the next Merlin, a quasi-religious political leader who is considered chosen by the Force to rule Sol and its children. The sages of the various planets meditated and decided, 'Let's make the guy who absolutely hates politics our leader!  _That_  will be a great idea!'" Harry had grown more and more sarcastic as he spoke and punctuated his last statement by throwing his hands into the air and letting his head fall back against the wall behind his chair with a dull  _thunk_.

Padme stifled a giggle but couldn't stop a smile blooming upon her lips. The Jedi's dramatics, despite the heavy topic of discussion, lifted her spirits somewhat. It was nice that the slightly older Jedi was opening up to her. She could definitely relate to the exasperation Harry felt at political movements. There were days where she, herself, felt like banging her head up against a wall or throwing someone into a fountain.

When Harry had composed himself, Padme saw that the frustration had bled from the Jedi's face. His features demonstrated a relaxed contentment. A small smile tugged at his lips. In a moment of clarity, Padme realized that his dramatics were an act. They were meant to bleed away some of the tension which had plagued her from the beginning of this whole debacle with the Trade Federation.

"The Order smuggled me out of the system before the sages could anoint me, but from what I heard before Naboo's interplanetary communications were cut, the negotiations were becoming…" Harry paused as he carefully chose his next word, "intense."

"Why would this be so much of a problem?" Padme asked, "Couldn't you just bring the issue to the Republic courts? It's illegal for a Jedi to be a sovereign Head of State, isn't it?"

"You're right. Jedi cannot hold sovereign office," Harry agreed, nodding, "There is some leeway in issues of a cultural position, but they cannot wield sovereignty. Not like the Merlins can. The biggest problem with that is that the Sol System is not part of the Republic."

"Oh," Padme's lips moved on their own accord as her mind tried to address all the political ramifications of such an act.

_Oh, indeed!_

The Republic stood upon a somewhat unsteady tripod of power: the central power of the Republic centered in the Senate; the sovereignty of the planetary governments; and the interplanetary commerce guilds like the Trade Federation, the Banking Clans, and the Techno Union. There were checks and balances in place overseen by the courts, but quite often it was not enough to eliminate strong-arm politics (a fact she was now intimately familiar with). The Jedi Order had stood in the midst of this tripod as negotiators and impartial advisors for thousands of years. While not an official part of the government, it wielded enormous influence nearly everywhere. Even in her small world of Naboo, the Jedi were a prominent standard of peaceful resolution. Padme, herself, had been affectionately nicknamed 'Jedette' by the people when she had visited Naboo's eastern continent during her campaign. It was a word in the local dialect that literally meant 'Little Jedi' but was used to denote a peacemaker and reconciler.

If a Jedi became a sovereign of a system outside of the Republic, it would cause shock waves in the political sphere. The Jedi's reputation as impartial negotiators would crumble. There had always been a jockeying amongst systems and races for Jedi favor in the hopes that someday, should Jedi intervention ever be needed on their behalf, the Order would look favorably on their desires. Padme remembered from her politics tutor that the Senate had long since heavily regulated these attempts. With a Jedi as sovereign of an outside system, there would be a ruthless mad rush to claim favor. It would not be a great leap of logic to entertain the possibility of violence breaking out in the political scuffle. Power blocks would shift and evolve within the Senate as alliances mutate to address this new player in Republic politics. Those in favor with the new system would demand Jedi negotiators in their dealings, where as those who had been shunned by the system would refuse the Order's mediation with accusations of bias.

It would be chaos. The very prospect of such unrest frightened Padme. She took another sip of her tea to calm her nerves.

"Why are you telling me this?" Padme asked as she set her cup down.

It was a good two minutes before Harry answered her. He pinned Padme with a slightly-unfocused gaze which made her want to fidget in her seat. There was an intensity to his stare which caused her to feel as if he was examining her very soul.  _Something_  was happening. She didn't know what exactly but there was a heaviness to the air which she had never experienced before. It did not feel intrinsically  _wrong_. Much to the contrary, it felt totally natural. It simply felt  _alien_  in her neatly ordered world. It was wild, untamed.

The Jedi blinked and the feeling was gone.

"What do you know about the Force?"

"I… Well," the question was so seemingly tangential that it caught Padme off guard, "admittedly not much. Only that to some religions, it is a unifying force which flows through all things."

"A very simple, although generally correct, definition which is common in the wider galaxy," Harry said, nodding, "The Force flows through everything and binds it together. All that exists holds just as much a place within the Force as it does in tangible reality. It always seeks to preserve this flow of life and existence and so guides those whose will is in conformity with its own."

"You make it seem like the Force is alive," Padme pointed out and Harry chuckled wryly.

"Of course it is!" the Jedi stated happily, "You are alive, aren't you? I'm alive. Untold trillions live all across our galaxy and that is still discounting those who live far beyond our own. If the Force is one, and life flourishes within it, then it must, itself, be alive," Harry took a sip of his tea and absent-mindedly floated the now empty cup back to his satchel where it went about autonomously refilling itself, "As of about five minutes before you walked through that door," he nodded at the door behind Padme, "I was meditating in my berth. The Force was quite insistent I get up and make a cup of tea!" Harry said matter-of-factly, causing Padme to giggle at the absurdity.

"I know, right!" the Jedi agreed with her sentiment, "When you walked in, I knew the Force wanted you to be informed about  _something_. I just didn't immediately know what exactly it was. In the end, I just answered your questions truthfully and waited to see if the Force sent me warnings to stop. It never did, so here we are"

Upon reflection, Padme realized that she had, in fact, driven the conversation into somewhat personal territory. She felt her cheeks heat slightly in embarrassment as she realized how forward some of her questions had been. Had that been the Force? Were those 'instincts' which had driven her into this conversation and had guided her throughout her whole life actually the urgings of the Force?

There was something important here.

"Is everyone guided by the Force? Is there no free will?"

"While the Force may be present in all things, not everyone can feel the urgings of the Force, let alone actively harness it," the Jedi explained, "Even for those with an extremely sensitive connection to the Force, your actions are still your own. One can simply say 'no' to the Force and go about your business," Harry leaned back in his seat, watching Padme intently. He seemed expectant, as if he was watching the wheels turn in her head and was curious as to see in what direction her mind went, "Your questions here may have been guided by the Force, but be assured, _you_  asked them."

Padme mulled over the words which had been exchanged over the past half hour, allowing both Queen and Jedi to fall into a comfortable silence. She finished her tea and refused his silent question of another cup with slight shake of her head. Harry had been accommodating so far, but she knew from her time in politics that the sometimes the most honest answers were drawn from abrupt changes in the flow of a conversation. She wondered what the Jedi's reaction would be.

"What if I don't believe you?" Padme asked, receiving only an eyebrow raised in question as a response, "What if I don't believe that the Force guided my actions tonight and that is simply a figment of your religion?" The Queen made sure to keep her tone polite and curious so as to not make her question sound like an accusation rather than the curious query which it was.

Harry seemed to look through Padme as he thought about how to respond. She felt the air grow heavy again. It was not nearly as overpowering as before, but it was still noticeable.

"I could show you."

"What?" the question was asked before her brain could catch up to her confusion.

"I could show you what I experience when in contact with the Force," Harry explained, "Then you could feel what I feel and then decide if the Force is at work in your life."

Padme opened her mouth to reply. What that reply was, she didn't know. She did know, however, that she probably say  _something_  in response to such an extraordinary offer. The words never came, as Harry held up his hands in a placating gesture to stymie her quick response.

"I don't need an answer now. This is not something to be taken lightly, "he advised, "My mind would come in contact with your own and you would have to willingly allow me entrance. Your mind would be in my hands to do with it as I will. Your trust in me must be complete and we only met a few hours ago. Wait until we have liberated your planet and then give me your answer," Padme nodded in response, thankful that she had time to mull the offer over. She rose from her chair and Harry mirrored her rise.

"Thank you for your offer," she spotted her empty cup on the table and picked it up, "and the tea," she added as an afterthought.

"You're very welcome, your Highness," the Jedi replied with a small bow.

"Your Highness," she replied back, dipping into a short mock curtsy.

The Queen heard his quiet chuckle as she placed her used cup in the sanitizer. She had just touched the door release to leave when she heard the Jedi's voice again.

"Goodnight, Padme."

She twisted slightly so she could look back at the man and was struck, yet again, by how handsome the Jedi was. Her stomach promptly renewed its earlier squirming.

"Goodnight, Harry," she said, making a quick retreat to hide her growing blush.

* * *

Harry shook himself as he felt the heavy pressure of the Force leave him. Master Yaddle had always called these instances when the Force seemed to take hold of him and directly cause him to act in a certain way Soothsaying. It did not happen regularly, but the Sooth was not totally foreign to him. His Master had explained that it was a resonance of the Force in those rare few whose lives possess not only destiny but also fate. Most force users have destiny. It was widely accepted that it was specifically for this destiny that the Force granted the individual their power. They were meant to cause certain events to happen. For those with fate, the Force also acted in such a way to dictate  _how_  those events came to be. Soothsaying was the truth of fated action resonating through time. Harry knew that this resonance which he just experienced with Padme, this Sooth, had just initiated a fated action in either his or Padme's future.

The knight had experienced Sooth a handful of times before, usually revolving around combating Voldemort. Then, the Sooth had been resolute, firm, almost violent. It was a bulwark against which Voldemort's dark forces would crash, protecting those who sheltered behind it. Those Sooths had always left an aftertaste of fear and foreboding in Harry's mind, not for himself, but for the lives which would be lost in the inevitable conflict.

For the first time, however, Harry felt a Sooth that was happy, joyful. Whatever the Force had just caused in their lives, only good would come out of it. It was a new experience. He basked in the happy calm which followed this Sooth, closing his eyes and slipping into a quiet meditation.

It was only fifteen minutes after Harry felt Padme fall asleep that he felt a familiar mind flare into consciousness. Coming out of his meditation, he smiled at Obi-Wan's general state morning grogginess and moved to prepare both a cup of caf for the partially awake padawan and a new cuppa for himself. He had just placed the cup down in from of the chair previously occupied by Padme and reseated himself when the galley's door hissed open and the sleepy Jedi shuffled into the room.

Silence filled the room as Obi-wan seated himself and sipped his drink. It was only after he had drained the cup of scalding liquid and retrieved a second cup from the percolator had been set up over one of the induction coils installed into the galley counter top that Harry felt it safe to speak without having his head bitten off by a half-awake Jedi.

"So," Harry began in a crisp upper-level Coruscanti accent favored by so many of the more up-tight Masters in the Temple, "if it isn't  _Padawan_  Kenobi," said padawan gave him a solemn nod in acknowledgement.

"Sir Midget," Obi-Wan returned. The two Jedi stared at each other for a minute before both men lost their composure and began to chuckle.

"How are you Obi-Wan? I see you've had some work done," Harry tapped his nose in acknowledgement.

Indeed, Obi-Wan had had reconstructive surgery. Gone was the horribly broken nose which was the result of their initial meeting and the event which led to their friendship. When Harry had been six and Obi-Wan ten years of age respectively, the older youngling had been given a punishment (what for, Harry never had found out as it seemed to be somewhat embarrassing for the elder boy) requiring him to assist with the Harry's first hand-to-hand self defense class. Obi-Wan had been an arrogant little nerf-herder when 'assisting' the younger children and Harry had taken offense. Eventually, when it came for the practical portion of the lesson, Harry had ended up flinging the older boy face-first off the training mats and onto the unyielding wooden floor. The act had shattered Obi-Wan's nasal septum. The lesson was overseen by Master Rancisis who, being a of a mainly cartilaginous species and somewhat ignorant of human biology, had forbid Obi-Wan from getting it set so that the broken nose would be a constant reminder of the need for humility. Both Harry and Obi-Wan were ordered to clean the training salles together for the next month and struck up a friendship. The rest was history. From that point onward, they were practically inseparable when they were both present at the Temple. Harry had always thought of the broken nose as a testament to their friendship. He was almost sorry to see it go, despite the fact that it always gave Obi-Wan horrible nose bleeds whenever his nose got too dry.

"Master Qui-Gon got it fixed on Ord Mantel," Obi-Wan explained, "He was tired of me having to wear an atmo-hood with a humidifier attachment whenever we went to dry-climate planets," he shrugged, "It's nice not to have to deal with the bleeding anymore," the padawan took a sip of his cup of caf and  _hmmed_  in pleasure.

"Soooo," Obi-Wan drew out the word as he always did when he was preparing to ask about something which he was dying to know the answer to, "you're a Knight now?"

"Yes. I am," Harry played dumb and smiled into his cup of tea as he took a sip.

"At eighteen?"

"Seventeen, actually. I was knighted a few months ago," the knight corrected. The padawan across from him sighed.

"You can never do anything normally, can you, Harry?" A roguish grin was his only answer, "What happened? I assume that your trials were accepted by the council retroactively."

"You remember that I told you that Voldemort, the Darksider who killed my parents, was still alive, right?" at Obi-Wan's nod, Harry continued, "well, he regained a body when I was fourteen and the government adamantly refused his existence until he personally confronted me in one of the primary government buildings a year later. After that, there was planetary guerrilla warfare for another year until the leader of the Light faction was killed and the planetary government quickly fell after that and the Darksiders used the Terran navy attempt to genocide the other races of the system. I gathered an opposition force and after yet  _another_  year of fighting, I was able to kill Voldemort and their forces fell apart." Harry knew that Obi-Wan would see that he was hiding a lot. The padawan was one of the most perceptive people he knew. It was a few moments before Obi-Wan spoke.

"How bad was it?"

"One point seven," was Harry's response.

"I… What?" Obi-Wan said in confusion.

"One point seven billion sentients lost their lives."

Obi-Wan's cup of caf slipped in his hand and he scrambled to catch it before it spilled into his lap. The padawan set it on the table with slightly trembling hands.

"How?" he started, "We would have sensed that. Force!  _Everyone_  would have sensed that."

"When Voldemort overran the Terran government, he gained control of the System's ancient force defenses," Harry explained, "with those controls, he shifted the system fully into the Cosmic Force. To those outside, we simply ceased to exist. For those inside, we were totally alone. Our perceptions in the Force seemed to halt at the very edge of the system. Only those keyed into the defenses by Voldemort could pass the edge of the system. He wanted to cleanse his home of those he deemed unworthy before he moved on to the rest of the galaxy."

Obi-Wan seemed to be at a loss for words as they devolved into an uneasy silence, quietly sipping their drinks. Harry could see the wheels turning in his friend's byzantine mind. The padawan seemed to have come to the conclusion that this was much to heavy a conversation for the present time so he changed the subject.

"I was on Illum last year, and the archive masters..." Obi-Wan began.

"Illum?" Harry interrupted, "Why were you on  _Illum_  again?" the Knight saw the light embarrassed flush on his friend's cheeks and barked out a laugh, "You lost it again! Mr. 'A-Jedi's-weapon-is-his-life'  _lost_ his lightsaber again."

"I did not  _lose_  it. I still had all the pieces," Obi-Wan winced as Harry laughed at his slip of tongue. He cleared his throat, "I was saying, the archive masters said that you  _still_  had not gone to build your lightsaber. I inquired if they knew if you had gone to a different temple for a crystal and they had told me that you hadn't. Instead, they seemed exited to inform me that you had registered an artifact as a primary weapon. Sooo…" he held his hand out to Harry.

Chuckling at his friend, the knight unclipped his saber from his belt and placed it in the beckoning palm.

Obi-Wan almost dropped it, expecting the saber to be of a similar weight to his own.

"It's so light!" the padawan exclaimed. And it was. The ancient saber weighed about a fifth of what the typical tool of the Jedi weighed.

The hilt within his friend's hand was  _old_. That was the first thing Harry himself had felt when he had picked it up just over five years ago and he was sure that Obi-Wan could feel it now. The padawan's fingers ghosted over the weapon, taking in its unique appearance. He paid special attention to the faintly glowing red gem set into the pommel where the magnetic belt clip rested on his own lightsaber and the name emblazoned in electrum down the grip: GRYFFINDOR. Obi-Wan tapped the rigid cross guard.

"Was this modeled after the old sabers designed to prevent Cho Mai?" he asked, using the term which described the removal of the opponent's hand, "I heard that they were notoriously hard to handle due to their propensity to burn their owners. This would definitely fix that."

"Actually," Harry said, shaking his head, "I think it was the other way around. This predates the Cho Mai guards by a great deal. The lightsaber mods only started appearing after the Sword of Gryffindor made it into hands of a Jedi for the first time," Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow, impressed. He went back to examining the sword.

Harry hid his smile behind his tea as his friend's expression became increasingly perplexed.

"How do you turn it on?" the padawan asked suddenly, "I can't find an ignition switch."

"It's a force artifact, Padawan Kenobi," Harry said in his best expression of Master Nu, the one Jedi who Obi-Wan had the least patience for, "Use the Force!"

Said padawan shot his friend an unamused look but prepared himself to do just that. He held the hilt over the center of the table, pointed towards the ceiling. Harry felt the other Jedi collect himself and brush the artifact with his mind.

Obi-Wan gave a sharp yelp and quickly dropped the saber.

"It  _bit_  me!" he exclaimed, bringing a hand up to massage his temple, "You knew this was going to happen," he accused his laughing friend.

"I suspected, but I didn't know for sure," the knight explained, "That was one of the mildest reactions I've seen from the blade; it actually killed a Darksider who tried to use it against me once."

Obi-Wan's gaze flickered back and forth between Harry and the Sword of Gryffindor in horror.

"You knew that it had killed people and you still let me try to activate it? What is  _wrong_ with you?"

"Oh, don't be such a youngling!" Harry retrieved the fallen hilt from the table and reattached it to his belt, "Unless you turned into a psychotic darksider in the past five years and were currently planning my murder, you were fine."

"I had forgotten," Obi-Wan said, his head falling into his hands, "how unbearable you could be sometimes."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Harry said, slightly indignant.

"Oh," Obi-wan leveled his glare at his friend, "It is! Be sure that it is. Between you and Master Qui-Gon, I pray that the whills get us all out of this mission alive."

The Force seemed to take delight in Obi-Wan's misery, for it was at that moment that the door to the galley hissed open and said Master strolled in, fresh-faced and smiling.

"And why would this mission go anything but smoothly, my melodramatic padawan?"

Obi-Wan let his head fall to the table with a  _thunk_  and a groan.

"We're doomed!"

* * *

**A/N:** **Both of Harry's sections in these past two chapters have been somewhat brief as compared to Padme's. I didn't mean for it to turn out that way, but it is what it is. Harry's section in the next chapter will be longer. I have a lot more planned for him. I just thought, as we are winding down the events of the initial invasion and Padme really is the one most invested in these events, that her development should get some preference to Harry's. In** _**Phantom Menace** _ **, they really don't develop her character past the little blurp on Tatooine and even then, we only see her while she is trying to disguise herself. We never really experience the girl who was elected to rule her people and thrust into a conflict in which her decisions could cost the lives of her people.**

**Next stop, Tatooine!**

**Olorin**


	3. Scion Spycraft

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Star Wars. I make no money off of this.**

 

* * *

**Chapter 3: Scion Spycraft**

The metaphysical itch was driving Harry crazy. It grated against his Force sensitivity with an almost oppressive need. The Jedi wanted relief. He  _needed_  relief. The Force demanded it. The problem was that he simply couldn't find the source of the itch to relieve it.

There was a young  _powerful_  Force sensitive somewhere in Mos Espa that desperately required training. The problem was that Harry simply couldn't find the child. The youngling's force signature was  _everywhere_  in this city. After being reassured by the Force that Padme would not be harmed in his absence, he ventured out on his own to find a lead on the potential youngling. There were a few places in the wealthier area of the city between the main gate and the Starport which held a slightly more concentrated saturation of the child's power (mainly lower-end junkers and robotics shops) but the further Harry ventured into the poorer sectors of the city, the stronger the child's presence became. He had come upon a parts shop on the far side of the Starport which practically blazed in the Force. The shop was closed at the time, but after making inquiries at the general store across the street, he found it to be owned by a Toydarian named Watto. He also discovered the identity of the one who he was tracking: Anakin, Watto's slave.

Asking around, the Jedi quickly found that nearly no one bothered to learn much about the slaves which were the backbone of this city. Harry had only learned of Anakin's name from the shopkeeper's young son. The young slave had sometimes played with the five-year-old before he made his way home in the afternoons before the father had gotten wind of it and drove Anakin off. Unfortunately, there was no one who could tell Harry where the boy lived. The closest he got was one patron of the local cantina's grunt of, "Kriff off! If'r you lookin' fer slaves, go ta tha Slave Quarter. Them  _chssk_  ain't welcome here!"

It was for this reason that Harry was wandering the Slave Quarter. The boy's presence was so strong here that he couldn't place the boy's residence. It was somewhere near the center of the dilapidated district but the further he journeyed into maze of hovels, the more lost he became.

"Oh dear!"

Harry turned at the quiet exclamation to find an old woman straining to gather fallen pallie fruit from the ground around her small stand. An overturned basket next to her seemed to be the culprit of her current situation. Thinking he could use distraction from his aimless wanderings, he stooped down to help the woman.

"Here, let me help you, Grandmother." The woman jerked in surprise and looked over to Harry as he bent down to gather her errant produce.

"My… aren't you a bright one! And such manners… Thank you, young man," Her words brought Harry up short.

Bright one… That was a phrase he knew intimately. His master had drilled that phrase, along with rest of the Jedi Intelligence passphrases into his head at an early age. It could have been a coincidence, a slip of tongue, but he didn't think so. Harry could feel the slight purr of the Force underneath the oppressive itch of Anakin's power. This was a Jedi Scion.

The Scions were former padawans who either failed the Trials of Knighthood or voluntarily joined one of the Service Corps after not being chosen by a Master for padawan apprenticeship. The Scions were usually chosen from among those padawans with the lowest Force sensitivity. They were trained as intelligence operatives and given the integral task of being the Jedi's eyes and ears in those places where Jedi Watchers were not welcome. They were often inserted into societies rife with those who operated within the shadows of the Republic: crime lords, murderers, drug dealers, and slavers. Their low Force sensitivity gave them somewhat of a buffer to falling to the dark side. In all honesty, they could blend in easier than most fully trained Knights and quite often could deal with situations which could cause the average Knight to fall. Many Knights who knew of the Scions' existence looked down on them, but not Harry. Master Yaddle had taught him that knowledge was power and without the vital role the Scions played, the Order would have lost much of its own power long ago.

"Knowledge passes from those who come before. If I am bright, then it is only a testament to my teachers." Harry gave the proper response to signal that he had upper-level Intelligence clearance and the old Scion gave him a wide grin. She took the fruit from him, plopped them back into the basket and rose from the ground with much more grace than she had previously shown.

"So, what can old Jira do for you, Master Jedi?" Harry's eyes widened at the blatant breach of protocol and quickly made a sweep of the street with his senses. Apart from a few people in the various apartments along the street, they were alone.

"Please, Master," Jira said as if speaking to a child, "I have been doing this longer than you have been alive. I know when I am alone with an asset. Besides," Jira reached into the folds of the shapeless brown outer wrap she wore and removed a sleek metallic box. It was a top of the line short-range signal jammer and probably worth more than a slave would make in a decade, "I took precautions," she explained with a smirk. Harry chuckled.

"My mistake, Jira. I bow before your wisdom," he did indeed bow to her and the old crone cackled.

"What is the galaxy coming to? A Commander of Jedi Intelligence bowing to an old wash-out like me?" she wagged her finger at Harry, "You sir, are a flatterer."

"Maybe, but I'm not a Commander," her jovial expression dropped in the blink of an eye only to be replaced by suspicion and steely determination. Harry couldn't blame her. Those pass phrases were a closely held secret of the Scions. Only active members of Jedi Intelligence were supposed to have access to them.

Harry heard the distinctive soft click of a blaster's safety being disengaged and looked up to see the muzzle of said blaster rifle pointed at him through the curtains of a second-floor window of the building behind her. He slowly and subtly raised his hands in acquiescence to the threat. It appeared as though he shouldn't have discounted the residents of the apartments after all.

"I was the Librarian's apprentice. I was exposed to enough during my apprenticeship that she gave me the clearance. I'm…" Harry cleared his throat. He hated his code name but it had been Master Yaddle who had come up with it and was his official Intelligence moniker, "I'm Dumb-Luck."

"Huh," Jira flicked her fingers in a seemingly innocuous gesture and the blaster barrel disappeared from the window, "I though you would've been taller."

The old Scion picked up her basket of fruit and gestured for him to follow her. With practiced ease and perfect balance, she led him up the steep narrow staircase and into the apartment from which the blaster had emerged.

When the deceptively sturdy door closed behind Harry, Jira pecked a few codes into an old console built into the wall and he felt more than heard a dampening field spring into being along the outer wall of the home. Gradually the sounds of the outside world dampened into a general hush of static white noise. When a low frequency beep was emitted by the console signaling (Harry suspected) that the field was in place, Jira rolled her shoulders and straightened. Gone was the façade of an old grandmother and in her place was a seasoned intelligence operative. She plopped her basket of pallies down by the door and removed her outer robe, placing it on one of the hooks beside the door. Beneath, she wore spacing leathers. Her many pockets seemed to be filled with the various tools of her craft. Harry spotted the frequency jammer she had shown him peeking out of her right breast pocket in addition to a standard Intelligence-issue manual lock pick set, an auto-slicer, and a rather wicked looking vibroknife hanging from her belt. This was, of course, in addition to the DL-44 Heavy Blaster slung in a holster over her right hip.

"Yasin!" Jira hollered down the narrow hallway now that the dampening field shielded the home from any outside surveillance, "Put the kettle on. We've got a guest," she paused a moment in thought, "and use the good tea, not the usual  _chssk_  you try to pawn off!" Without a backwards glance, she started off down the hallway. Harry stood in the doorway, blinking for a moment at his blatant dismissal as a threat before shrugging and removing his somewhat stifling disguise.

While Tatooine's cities seemed to be a mishmash of races from the surrounding systems in addition to the seemingly standard galactic human population, he had found that even in smuggling hubs like this one, people always seemed to be conscious of anyone new. As the Sol System and her colonies were, quite literally, on the other side of the galaxy, he knew that a Ma'jaii walking down the street would be remembered, despite his race's close proximity to the baseline human population. It was usually the ears and the eyes which gave them away. So Harry had swapped out his Jedi robes for his old day-to-day spacing leathers from the war which he kept in his expanded belt pouch. He had wrapped his head and face in a rough piece of scrap cloth and finished his disguise with a pair of tinted pilot's goggles. Apparently, he had chosen his disguise well because he had passed at least three people similarly garbed and had only gotten suspicious looks when he began asking after a specific slave.

Hanging his facecloth and goggles on the hook next to Jira's robe, he followed the old operative into the apartment's communal area.

To Harry's immediate left was a cluttered workbench strewn with various bits of servos and circuit boards. Beyond that, occupying the corner of the room was a small a small kitchenette. A slim Zeltron male (whom Harry assumed was Yasin) occupied the cramped space facing the wall as he made them the aforementioned tea. Beyond the kitchenette in the corner opposite to the opening which he was currently occupying stood three doorways. All three were currently closed with sturdy durasteel security doors similar to the one at the front of the apartment. A battered couch stood along the wall between the doorways and an ancient loom which was set up in the final corner of the room next to a battered humanoid mannequin. Bolts of finished fabrics in a number of muted colors leaned against the antique.

All in all, there was nothing which said that there was an intelligence operative in residence, but Harry didn't expect there to be. A sloppy spy was a dead spy. Instead, Harry reached out with the Force to confirm Jira's identity. Information could be stolen, even from spies. There was but a single hallmark of the Jedi Intelligence service which could not be faked. It had a long scientific name which only appeared in official reports, but everyone who actually used it just called it 'Force Glue'. It was simply powdered kyber crystals suspended in a thin glue. This alone would be relatively simple to recreate. As each batch was made, however, it was impregnated with the force signature of Master Koyt, Jedi Intelligence's quartermaster. The signature was faint enough that those who did not know of its existence would simply dismiss it as the natural background force presence of the environment. The result was a useful tool which could only be identified by a force sensitive who knew what to look for.

Harry swept the room carefully with his mind even as Jira beckoned him over to the small table of the kitchenette. He found four signs painted using Force Glue. The first two meant 'Weapon', meaning anything from a vibroknife stuffed between the cushions of a sofa to military grade surface to air missiles. The Jedi highly doubted that they had the latter stashed around the house, but it was highly likely that they had blasters stuffed in the light sconce near the trio of doorways in the corner and the large grain storage bin under the counter of the kitchenette on which the symbols had been painted. 'Medic' was painted on the metal board above the workbench on which hung basic small-machinery repair tools. Harry suspected the board swung outwards to reveal a hollow wall and one of the Jedi Intelligence emergency triage kits. The last sign was 'Escape'. It always denoted a non-standard escape route which had been created by Intelligence operatives. This sign was painted under the rug on which the loom sat. The knight assumed that there was a hatch there which led to safety, should the apartment be breached.

Harry took the offered seat at the small table just the Zeltron male turned to place two teacups on the table, a third waiting patiently on the counter for a free hand. The barely noticeable pause before he set the two cups before Harry and Jira was a testament to his training that he was barely phased by encountering a new species (Harry knew the odds of the Zeltron encountering another Ma'jaii was astronomically high).

"Well, hello there," the pink-skinned man purred, offering a fine-boned hand for Harry to shake, "Yasin L'erx. It's a pleasure."

Harry took a breath to reply and sneezed violently… and again… and a third time. By the fifth sneeze he was able to fish a handkerchief from his belt pouch and hold it to his running nose and watering eyes.

"Ber'mones," the knight was able to wheeze out, "Aler'ic ta ber'mones!" Yasin's eyes widened in surprise and Harry felt the pheromones in the air decrease dramatically. He reached out to the air around him with his mind and pushed it away from him. The wind the action created was rather noticeable as the majority of the air had been pushed back at the Zeltron. The man had to take a step back to balance himself and his formerly perfectly styled blue hair now closely resembled Harry's own bird nest.

Harry blew his nose and wiped the remaining tears from his face.

"Thank you," he said and Yasin gave him a sheepish shrug.

"Sorry?" It was more of a question than an actual admission of sorrow.

"No, you're not," Jira accused. She took a sip of her tea, immensely amused at Yasin's situation if her smug smirk was anything to go by, "You're miffed that one of your grifts actually failed."

"One time!" Yasin countered, indignant, "And this doesn't count. It was a physical reaction to my pheromones. It would have happened to any Zeltron. There was  _nothing wrong_  with my grift."

"Aaannnd," Jira seemed to be making this a lesson for the younger Scion, "your mind trick failed. Subtle, it may be, but against a force sensitive worth his water, it doesn't do squat. If the grift is sound, you won't need anything else." Yasin's shoulders slumped in a sulk.

"Who are you anyway?" Harry didn't get to answer because Jira did it for him.

"This is Dumb-Luck." Yasin blinked at him for a moment before some of the sulk lifted from his posture.

"Okay, now I don't feel so bad." Harry was confused. He knew that his moniker was in the agent database, but Yasin's tone spoke of a familiarity beyond a simple name.

"How do you two know me?"

"Honey, you're a legend," Yasin's purr was back. It seemed to be his default setting.

"We're spies, Master Jedi," Jira explained, "We are literally  _paid_  to gossip. Intelligence goes both ways. Give and take. The higher-ups get our intel and we get all the public juice on our superiors."

"And some of the not-so-public stuff too," the Zeltron chimed in.

"The Masters are okay with this?" Harry asked and Jira gave a laugh which bordered on a full-blown cackle.

"Please! The Librarian puts together quarterly newsletters for us. Sometimes she has a column just devoted to you." The woman pulled out a small datapad from one of her pockets and typed a handful of codes into it before handing it over to Harry. Sure enough, displayed was an old article giving an overview of the Chamber of Secrets fiasco. Harry felt vaguely violated, "Hasn't been anything for a little over a year, though," she said leadingly. There was a sharp glint in her eye at the prospect of hidden information. Harry shook his head.

"And there won't be," he said firmly, looking Jira in the eye and dropping his occlumency shields slightly so that more of his force presence could be felt by the Scion. He projected the finality of his decision at the human woman.

"That bad?" Jira asked and received a firm nod in response. "That's that, then," she said, glancing at her Zeltron partner, "Isn't it, Yasin?"

The man glanced between both Jedi and senior Scion before swallowing heavily and nodding.

"That's that."

"Good," Jira said briskly, "Now down to business. Why are you here drinking my tea?"

" _Your_  tea?" muttered Yasin but both Harry and Jira ignored him.

"Librarian foresaw a mission going sideways and assigned me for protection," Harry had been drilled relentlessly by Master Yaddle on giving mission reports. No superfluous information, no opinions unless asked for, only the relevant facts, "Damaged our hyperdrive on route to Coruscant and landed here for cover and repairs. The original assigned Jedi are taking care of the hyperdrive. Once I entered the city, the Force drove me to split from my group and find an untrained force sensitive living somewhere around here. I found out my target is a human boy named Anakin. He's somewhere in the Slave Quarter, but his presence is so erratic that it's saturating everything here. Unless I bump into the boy on the street, I won't be able to find him." Jira stared at him, seemingly lost in thought. Yasin just looked confused.

"I haven't felt anything," the Zeltron commented after a few moments but Jira almost immediately waved him off.

"You wouldn't," the old Scion explained, "It's not his natural senses. It's called imposed force hypersensitivity. I've come across Jedi who've experienced it a few times. The Force has a special mission for him and has enhanced his ability to sense the boy for the sole purpose of finding him. The sensitivity should vanish as soon as he meets Anakin. I've been recommending the boy for training in my reports for years, but there have been complications prohibiting his extraction."

"Complications?" Harry asked. What could possibly halt the Order from saving a known (and powerful if what he has been sensing is any indication) force sensitive from slavery?

"Up until about a year and a half ago, he belonged to Gardulla the Hutt."

That would do it. Gardulla the Hutt was infamous for her hatred of Jedi and had racked up a long list of Order affiliated casualties in her almost seven hundred years of life. Multiple times the Order had attempted to bring down her operation and each time, they had failed. The silent war between Gardulla and the Order had calmed into near non-existence about a century ago and the higher-ups were hesitant to do anything which could instigate the reawakening of that conflict. Instead, it had taken to more covert means of resistance, working to undermine her secondary contacts in hopes that a rival would absorb Gardulla's operations and be easier to work with (and against). Last Harry had heard, Jabba Tiure, the head of the small Clan Desilijic had moved his operations to Tatooine and had taken over the northern reaches of the planet, including the small smuggling port of Mos Eisley. The Order was biding it's time concerning the situation.

"About a year and a half ago," Jira continued, "I was able to rig a bet so that Gardulla lost Anakin and his mother, Shmi, to an owner who was known to take relatively good care of his slaves. By that time, the Temple said that he was well past the acceptance age for children with non-standard educations," the old Scion sighed, "I've been trying to keep an eye out for Anikin and Shmi ever since."

"So you can take me to him?" Harry asked, thankful that he finally had a solid lead on the child.

Jira nodded.

"Yep, but it'll have to wait. There's a Coriolis sandstorm rolling in off the Great Dune Sea and unless you don't like your skin attached to your body, you won't want to go out until it passes."

Harry's eyes widened. If that was the case, he needed to relay that information to Master Qui-Gon so they had an opportunity to seek shelter. He rose from the table.

"Excuse me, I need to step outside to make a comcall."

"Let me guess," Jira said with a sly smile, "you're trying to contact the ones taking care of that hyperdrive you mentioned. Big fellow, a Jedi with brown salt and pepper hair traveling with a girl and an aquatic sentient who sticks out like a sore thumb on a dustball like Tatooine?" Harry blinked at her.

"Err… Yes, I was. How did you-" the Jedi was cut off by Jira's laugh.

"They passed by my stall with Anakin about fifteen minutes before you did. I may have overheard that he was taking them back to his house for shelter from the storm." Harry sat back down with a sigh. Of course Jinn, Padme, and Binks would accidentally stumble upon Anakin while he was led on a wild chase around the city hunting for the boy. The Potter luck struck again.

"So, really all I can do is wait the storm out?" Jira shrugged, draining the last of her tea. She rose from the table to place her cup in the sanitizer.

"It's up to you. We've got an encrypted holoterminal if you want to send the Librarian a mission report or you could just take a kip on the couch. We'll be stuck inside for at least four hours. It's up to you," she walked out of the kitchenette area towards one of the three sealed doors in the corner, "I'm going to take a kip, myself," she turned back to them as she activated the door release and the metal door slid into the wall, "See to Dumb-Luck's needs, Yasin, and don't wake me till the storm passes." Jira entered the dark room and the door closed behind her with a resolute  _hiss-thunk_.

There were a few moments pause while both Jedi and Scion processed the older woman's abrupt departure.

"So," Harry began, "I take it she's the planetary Scion coordinator."

Yasin snorted.

"You could say that," the Zeltron replied, taking Harry's empty teacup and moving the counter to straighten up and put the kettle away, "She was the Scion commander for Hutt space for thirty years. This is Agent Krayt's retirement."

"Huh, I never would have guessed that  _that_  was the infamous Krayt," and it was true. Harry never would have guessed that Jira, the kindly old woman with an undercurrent of steel, was the Scion who coordinated the Jedi's actions within the Hutt empire with such startling accuracy for over three decades. The Huttese Dragon had quite literally written the book on Scion espionage.  _Shadow War_  had been the basic Scion primer on spycraft for the past two decades and had been assigned reading from his Master right alongside his Transfiguration homework from McGonagall and Trelawney's dream diaries. Master Yaddle had never thought that he would be a true Jedi Intelligence agent, but the spycraft lessons had been intended to supplement his Shadow training. In the end, Yaddle had (as always) been right and the lessons he had learned from Krayt's book had been extremely helpful when Harry had formally chosen to follow the path of the Shadow.

Yasin gave a rueful chuckle.

"Yeah, she's mellowed  _a lot_  in her old age," the Zeltron said, "But believe me, she can be a right demon when it comes to hounding Gardulla. Clan Besadii was the only part of the Hutt government which escaped Krayt's campaign against the Hutts relatively unscathed simply due to the fact that they moved their principle governance to Tatooine and were largely removed from the entangled Hutt politics of the primary region of Hutt space. Gardulla was able to swoop in to pick up the pieces whenever Jira had decimated one of the major clans. She has taken it upon herself to bring Gardulla down. It's why she  _retired_  here," Harry could hear the inflection which spun the location of her retirement as less of a place of relaxation and more of an unofficial self-imposed assignment. He chuckled.

"Master Yaddle always said, 'The only retirement a Jedi needs, death is!' I guess it can be applied to spies too," Yasin looked up from the counter he was wiping down with an old rag to give Harry a flat look. The Jedi put up his hands in an exasperated gesture, "In my defense, I can't get my voice that high and squeaky. It sounds much more mystical when she says it," the Zeltron responded with an undignified snort.

"So, Dumb-Luck," Yasin asked, putting down his rag and leaning over the small counter of the kitchenette which separated the main cooking area from table Harry was seated at. The pink man smirked when Harry scowled at his moniker, "should I set you up a holocall, get you a blanket, maybe some  _arak_ …?"

"Yes to the first, no to the second, maybe to the third after the call depending on what info Master has for me. I haven't had a mission update for a couple of months. Librarian needs to know the situation so she can have someone start running interference in the Senate." Yasin nodded and moved around the counter to stand in the center of the room.

Harry heard him mutter under his breath, "Alright, I can do this."

Yasin raised his arms towards the loom. Harry felt Yasin's mind jerkily reach out towards the large loom. The mental extension was nowhere as smooth as what he was used to from the other knights at the Temple. It was like trying to force molasses through a straw versus a quickly flowing stream. Harry saw the loom lift a inch from the floor and begin to slowly move off to the left towards the open area in front of the couch. Every so often, it would wobble and knock against the floor. With every  _clunk_ , Yasin seemed to become more stressed and tense. Before it had even moved a meter, Yasin body was so strained that Harry could distinguish every rope of muscle in the Zeltron's neck. The Jedi needed to help before the man had an aneurysm. The Jedi placed a calm hand on the other man's shoulder, causing him to flinch in surprise and drop the loom.

"I can give you a hand if you want," Harry offered and Yasin bowed his head and flushed a deep purple in embarrassment. He rubbed his neck in a nervous gesture.

"Ah… thanks. I was always pants in telekinesis. My specialty is the mind arts." Harry nodded.

"Try again, just be calm and don't force it. Let your mind flow evenly."

Again Yasin's mind reached out but it was much slower this time. There was no longer any jerking movements but a slow steady progression outward.

"Now, don't try to attach strongly to certain points on the loom. Instead, spread your mind evenly over the entire surface of the loom. Feel every joint and beam, the grain of the wood," It took a few minutes, but eventually the Zeltron's mind encompassed the entirety of the loom.

"Now, close your eyes."

"But I won't-" Yasin began, but Harry cut him off.

"It won't matter. You have experience in the mind arts. Just feel the loom. You don't need your eyes," Yasin looked conflicted but conceded and closed his eyes.

"Now let your mind sink into the loom. Sense the loom. It is one with the Force, just as you are. It is no different than the minds around you," Harry saw the resistance bleed from the Zeltron's face and felt the man's mind sink into the loom. The Jedi paused his instruction, giving his impromptu student a time to get a true sympathetic connection with the loom.

"Now, the first step is to picture the loom moving in your mind. Don't try to move the physical object yet. See it slowly lifting off of the floor. Ten centimeters, a quarter of a meter, half a meter. Now stop. Gravity does not affect your mind. It is perfectly stable. It moves slowly to the left, steadily off of the carpet to the space in front of the couch. Can you see it in your mind?" The Zeltron's blue eyebrows furrowed in thought.

"I can see it."

"Okay. The next step is to open your eyes and we will make it a reality."

The Zeltron opened his eyes to the sight of the large loom floating steadily a half a meter off the ground in the exact spot he had pictured in his mind.

"I did it," he whispered, unbelieving. An ecstatic smile bloomed across his face and he thrust his arms into the air in victory, "I did it!" he shouted in joy.

The loom came crashing down with a deafening  _bang_.

" _YASIN!_ " Jira hollered from her room.

"Sorry!" Yasin yelled back, a smile still threatening to rip his face in two. He turned to Harry, "How was that possible? The masters at the Temple always said that I would never be able to do something like that with my midichlorian count."

"I had the same problem when I was young. I always equated telekinesis with physical strength until Master Yaddle did the same thing with me using that big bronzium statue of Grandmaster Fey Coven in the Archives atrium," Harry didn't tell him that he had been seven at the time and had ended up dropping it and snapping off one of the revered Master's feet but the lesson was the same, "Physical matter never affects the mind. This is what Master Yoda is always referring to when he says, 'Do or do not, there is no try!' In the Force, anything is possible if you simply open your mind to it and have the will to carry it through. When we are one with the Force, we become luminous beings. We transcend the petty limitations of the flesh. It doesn't matter what your midichlorian count is if your mind lives without limitations," at the end of Harry's impromptu sermon, Yasin was hanging off of his every word, his eyes wide.

"Thank you, master," Yasin said with a soft smile of understanding. Harry could feel the Zeltron's mind shedding past doubts and insecurities, only to be replaced with an ember of hope. Harry ran a hand through his hair, sheepish.

"I'm not a Master," Yasin shook his head.

"I don't care about the official title. For what you've given me, you're a Master in my eyes. If you need help, call and I'll be there." Harry knew there was no arguing with the man, so he simply accepted his offer of assistance.

"The holoterminal?" the Jedi gently reminded.

"Ah," Yasin moved into action, pulling back the rug and brushing a hidden switch to release a concealed blast hatch in the floor of the apartment, "down here."

Harry followed the Zeltron down the ladder for what had to have been fourty meters, arriving at a cavern deep in the Tatooine bedrock. It was a large space with a heavy blast door at the end of the room wide enough to drive a speeder though. Said speeder was parked in front of it, seemingly ready for a moment's escape. Along the walls were racks of weapons and machinery some were identifiable, but the purpose of most eluded the Jedi. A heavy holoterminal was set up in the corner beside a rather impressive computer system. Encrypted streams of data were constantly moving in and out sight on the various displays of the computer. Even retired, it seemed that Agent Krayt was still an important cog in the Scion machine. A system like this was usually reserved for an active commander and was a direct encrypted link to the Scion hub in the bowels of the temple. Thankfully, Harry wouldn't have to slice into the network and piggyback the holonet from system to system until he can get close enough to punt the signal to Coruscant.

Yasin guided him over to the Terminal and input a long string of codes to open the connection to the Temple.

"Here you go. The link is open to the hub but you will have to input your own clearances to reach Librarian." Harry nodded and waited until he heard the hiss of the blast hatch resealing, signaling that the Zeltron was truly back in the apartment above. Harry sat himself in the holoterminal's bench and turned his attention to the input screen.

_**Welcome to Intragalactic Exports, the Republic's finest market for interplanetary trade. Our interactive system is currently under repairs. Please leave a message and your contact information and a representative will respond promptly. Thank you.** _

Harry stretched his fingers and allowed them to dance over the keyboard.

_Inception2y9f52Elf072Majaii014Umbra1844Tan773Dumb-Luck_

_**Processing request…** _

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_**Please wait…** _

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_**Access Granted. Please input destination path.** _

_Librarian02cSatlink497Dumb-Luck04zUpdate_

_**Processing request…** _

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_**Please wait…** _

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_**Uplink verified. Please wait for transmission and connection verification…** _

Harry settled in to wait. Even at transwarp speeds, the signal could take anywhere from one half to three whole hours to reach Terra depending upon the uplink configuration and the solar weather of a few stars the signal path grazed.

 _Ping!_  Harry looked down at the screen in surprise.

_**Transmission link connected.** _

Harry blinked. Evidently Master Yaddle was no longer on Terra. Really, this almost non-existent connection time meant that she was back in the Temple.

A small blue hologram sprang into being from the prism inset into the holoterminal. The middle age elf looked no different than she had when Harry had last saw her on Terra.

"Hmmm. Finally remembered your old Master, you have. It is good to see you, Harry," his Master and surrogate mother's squeeky voice was like a balm upon the tension and stress of his first mission as a Jedi Knight. For Harry, Master Yaddle was his home as much as the Temple on Coruscant or Hogwarts on Terra ever was.

"Hello, Master. It is good to see you, too," Harry sighed. There was time for catching up once he got back to the Temple. For now, he was a Knight reporting to his mission handler. He pushed his feelings aside to make his report.

"Agent Dumb-Luck reporting in," the words had had the intended effect as Master Yaddle also gave an understanding sigh and assumed her role as Jedi Intelligence's Librarian, the officer ultimately responsible for the reception, processing, protection, and discemination of all information flowing through Intelligence channels. While she did not have the ultimate executive authority (that lay with Commander Spider and even Harry didn't know the identity of the Master who filled that role), she did have an ear to quite literally  _every_  Jedi affiliated mission and activity.

"Librarian receiving," Yaddle fiddled with the screen of her holoterminal outside of the capture radius, making her hands dissapear out of frame. Harry knew that she was turning on the archivist protocols to log the conversation in Intelligence's archives.

"Mission update: Naboo 968-6. Under orders of Librarian, I noted that all interplanetary communications were cut via the Trade Federation blockade on 7.15.968. I proceeded to monitor global atmospheric orbit through an access terminal at the Theed spaceport. Once multiple incoming atmospheric breaches were detected, I used the Jedi protocols to access the standard Republic global defense grid. Because of Naboo's pacifistic constitution, there were no military defense systems active on the grid. I was able to record global entries and the general dimensions and mass of the ships. At the time I was able to theorize that they were the Droid dropships purchased by the Trade Federation from the Techno Union on 3.3.964 as described in the background information I received in my initial mission briefing.

"Ships landed initially at the Naboo provincial capitals of New Centrif, Vis and Parrlay. It should be noted that these are the provinces furthest from the capital of Theed. Word of the cities subjugation came into Theed within two hours. Aproximately half an hour after the initial invasionary forces, thirty four similar ships landed in the southern hemisphere at regular locations. It is noted that this is Gungan teritory not under the rule of the Naboo and the location of the Gungan capital of Otah Gunga is unknown. I have since learned that Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and Padawan Obi Wan Kenobi, the assigned ambassadors of the Supreme Chancelor escaped assassination in the Trade Federation control ship and stowed away on two of these drop ships. They have confirmed that they were the droid transports earlier theorized." Harry took a breath and wet his dry mouth with a swig of water from his belt canteen.

"Immediately after the furthest provinces fell to the Trade Federationarmies, the capitals of the neighboring provinces were invaded. Harte Secur and Spinnaker fell quickly as well. No ships landed at Theed. Instead, Trade Federation forces marched from Hart Secur and Spinnaker to Theed and fully secured the outer city before moving on to capture the Queen and Naboo government at the Royal Palace. Approximately eighteen hours after the initial landing at the outer provincial capitals, the Queen was captured by Trade Federation forces. I have compiled all of the materials compiled in my investigation on an encrypted datacron. Transmitting now," Harry removed said datacron from his belt satchel and placed it in the uplink tray. The small crystal lit up a vibrant green as the data contained within was beamed to the Temple. Master Yaddle nodded and typed something into her holoterminal screen.

"Transmission confirmed. Data transmitting parallel to report. Continue, Dumb-Luck."

"The Trade Federation marched the Queen and her personal household along with the Governor of Theed, Sio Bibble, and the acting Commander of the Volunteer Security Forces, Quarsh Panaka, through Theed. This is a common tactic of demoralization used by hostile forces to pacify populations with few casualties. I was able to ambush the droids and free the Queen and her entourage. It was at this point when I encountered Master Jinn, Padawan Kenobi, and their Gungan guide, Jar Jar Binks. Together, we were able to liberate the Queen's impounded Royal Yacht and the captured flight crews which were held in the hangar. I relayed the anti-air emplacements around the city to the freed Space Defense pilots so that they could safely leave Theed airspace. Governor Bibble joined the Space Defense pilots in their escape. We boarded the Yacht and ran the blockade. During our escape, our hyperdrive was damaged and unable to bring us to Coruscant. Instead, it was decided to shelter on Tatooine for repairs to hide from the Trade Federation under the threat of the Hutts," there was a beep from Master Yaddle's end of the transmission and the small elf looked down at her screen.

"Data transmission complete. Label: Naboo 968-6 Supplement. Continue, Dumb-Luck," Harry picked up the datacron from the uplink tray and replaced it into his satchel. He continued with his report.

"The ship landed approximately five klicks southeast of Mos Espa. Master Jinn, one of the Queen's handmaidens, and the Gungan guide, Binks, are procuring a replacement hyperdrive. Upon entering Mos Espa, I was struck with imposed Force hypersensitivity and was compelled by the Force to find a child within the city. After confirming through Force that my companions would be safe, I left to search for the child. I discovered that the human boy's name was Anakin and was a slave to a Toydarian named Watto. I tracked him to the Slave Quarter, but was unable to locate the boy. I unintentionally encountered Agent Krayt. She informed me that she has been reporting Anakin Skywalker to the Temple for years for training, but has consistently received negative replies. According to her, Master Jinn and his party already encountered Anakin Skywalker and were taken back to his home for shelter from an oncomming Coriolis sandstorm. I am currently at Agent Krayt's residence taking shelter from the same storm. I am planning to accompany Agent Krayt to Anakin Skywalker's residence to rendezvous with Master Jinn's party after the storm passes and decide further course of action. Details irrelevant to the investigation have been omitted for operational security and will be divulged personally upon arrival," Harry alluded to the Queen's handmaiden disguise. It didn't affect the immediate investigation, but Master Yaddle would like to know about it eventually. He gave a deep sigh, happy to be finished, "Awaiting orders."

The holographic elf stared blankly at Harry. Yaddle's padawan knew that she was deep in thought. Her left foot bounced against her chair in tempo to her thoughts and the quiet click of her nails were picked up by the holoterminal as she tapped her fingers slowly together. It was possible she was having an impromptu meditation on the information he had just given her. Harry couldn't truly tell without being able to feel her Force presence. It was a few minutes before her eyes focused sharply and a mask of non-chalance fell over her dimunative features. The Elf addressed her screen, tapping away on her keyboard. A minute went by before a sly smile began to tug at her lips.

"With regards to Anakin Skywalker, abide, we must, by the wise ruling of the Department of Acquisitions," Harry knew that Yaddle and Acquisitions had a history of locking horns over admittance to the Order. If Acquisitions had their way, Yaddle would never had become a Knight after being trapped as a padawan in a cave for a century and had subsequently been declared dead by the Order. Harry knew that she saw both a way around their decision and an opportunity to rub it in the face of Master Amer, the Director of the Department of Acquisitions, "For some reason, reminded, I am, of the protocol of the High Council. Allowed, they are, to bring forward any motion pertaining to a mission inquiry session. Into force, this motion would come, overriding similar motions made previously by a Lower Council, if seconded, it is, by a member of the remaining two Lower councils," Harry matched Yaddle's sly smile.

The Department of Acquisitions was under the Council of Reassignment. Master Yaddle, herself, was on the Council of First Knowledge. Harry suspected the second person she was alluding to was most likely Master Ki-Adi-Mundi or Saesee Tiin. The two were members of the Council of Reconciliation, the Masters who oversaw the Order's interactions with the Senate. Both Masters Mace Windu and Adi Gallia also served on that Lower Council, but Master Windu was a stern believer in preserving the integrity of the Lower Councils' decisions and Master Gallia had been personally investigating the Trade Federation prior to their blockade of Naboo. The laws of the High Council prohibited her from acting in any capacity other than discussion and final voting on an issue in which she was an active part of the investigation. Yaddle could get around that law simply by virtue of acting through Harry.

"The Queen, sure I am, would be sympathetic to the plight of such a young and talented slave," Yaddle continued, "Such a burden, it will be, for her to take him back to Naboo. Show him, we can, some Jedi hospitality until find his place in the galaxy, he can. Hmhmhmhm." While her quiet chuckle sounded happy, her smile was now toothy and slightly predatory. Harry felt his own face subconsciously mimic his Master's expression.

"It is the least we could do. That is, if the Queen decides upon that course of action."

"Not possible at this time, extraction or assistance is. Other missions on Tatooine, we have running. Jeopardize these, we cannot. Your own way back to Coruscant, you must find. A dossier, I will compile, for you and your Queen to prepare you for the Senate," Harry looked at his Master oddly. Yaddle always chose her words very precisely. The formulation 'your Queen' meant something beyond it's obvious reference to his protection of her, "Current Senate political climate, relevant case law, possible opponents; everything, we will prepare for you. Important, I sense, this issue is. Send update, you will, before you leave if possible. May the Force be with you," Master Yaddle nodded gravely and held up a four fingered hand in a sign of blessing.

"And also with you, Master. Dumb-Luck, out." Harry switched off the holoterminal and collapsed back on the bench of the holoterminal with a sigh. That had been rather intense. The Jedi rubbed his eyes in a tired gesture and rose to his feet. Maybe he should join Yasin for that glass of arak.

* * *

**A/N: Okay. No Padme in this one. Her pov got punted to the next one. Originally I had just meant for Jira to be a passing Scion contact but the whole situation sort of blew up on me. I am, however, very happy with Yasin L'erx. I found a nice little niche for him to fill later in the story. Yaddle's appearance actually came as a surprise to me. It was like, "Okay, Harry's in a spy's house. _Of course_ he is going to try to contact command and make a mission report.' I actually played with making the sandstorm scramble the signals, but decided against it.**

**To head off flames of an ace-of-all-trades Harry. No. He is definitely not a spy. He is a shadow. They need to know basic spycraft skills in case they need to track a darksider while in deep cover. Primarily, he simply knows about spycraft. _Yaddle_ , however, is a spy. She was the head archivist (and still is) before Jocasta Nu. If there was a widespread Jedi Intelligence corps, the head archivist would definitely be a part of it. The Jedi Watchmen are already part of the Legends canon and operate under the Council of Reconciliation. They fulfill a somewhat public intelligence role, but I thought the Order must have some sort of intelligence system in place in the more seedy areas of the Galaxy. Thus, the Jedi Scions were born.**

**Next up: Anakin, Padme and Shmi. Oh my!**

**Olorin**


	4. A Political Perspective and Jerky

**Chapter 4: A Political Perspective and Jerky**

Padme was  _not_  sulking. She wasn't. She was just avoiding the oh-so-wise Master Jinn so that she wouldn't be tempted to shoot the Jedi in the foot with the hold-out blaster she had hidden in her rough handmaiden disguise.

How  _dare_  he!

The Royal Yacht was not something he could bargain with, let alone use as collateral in a  _bet_. She loved that yacht. It didn't matter if it was currently just slightly more useful than a large speeder…  ** _It was hers!_**

That was why she was currently being commanded by a nine-year-old boy, working on a delicate piece of technology upon which her entire future rested with absolutely zero technical knowledge whatsoever concerning the device, following directions like, "Turn it that way…no, to your left… your other left… oops, you were right the first time."

"You look frustrated. What's wrong?" The softly asked question came from someone standing directly behind her. Thus, Padme's reaction was completely expected.

" _Aaaaiiiiii!"_ the girl let out a high pitched squeal of surprise and swung the electrospanner she was holding at the head of the person who had sneaked up behind her. Her hand was easily caught by Knight Potter.

"Is this some sort of Nabooan greeting I'm unfamiliar with?" Harry asked with a roguish grin, having discarded his earlier disguise, "Next time I see the Queen, should I attempt to beat her with a tool box?"

"Don't sneak up on me!" Padme realized how close they were standing. She was proud to say that she could only feel a dusting of heat in her cheeks, a far cry from the molten blushes which had afflicted her during their conversation in the galley. She firmly tugged her hand from his grip and stepped back, "Where did you run off too? One moment you're behind me and the next you're nowhere in sight. If you'd been there," she poked the Jedi in the chest, "then… uh," Padme paused and poked him again. It was like poking a slab of granite. Quickly she got her train of thought back on track, "then maybe our fate wouldn't rest on a nine-year-old competing in an infamously  _lethal_  race." He blinked at her, confused.

"Okay, I think you should start from the beginning. I need a little context."

"Where. Did. You. Go!" Padme crossed her arms and stared the Jedi down, every inch the irritated Queen and petulant teenage girl that she was.

"I felt Anakin's force signature on our way into the city and was guided by the Force to seek him out to collect him for training," the Queen wasn't amused and simply pointed at the boy who was half-immersed upside-down in one of the engines, his legs flailing in the air in an attempt to lever himself out.

"Yes, well," the Jedi scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, "I know that  _now_ ," the girl's scowl deepened, "the good news is that I was able to make contact with the Temple at Coruscant. While they are unable to provide assistance in getting us off-planet, they are preparing for our arrival. My master is personally preparing a dossier for you. Officially, the Jedi must remain neutral. Unofficially, however, you have the full weight of the Jedi Archives supporting your position in the Senate and with Master Yaddle's connections I wouldn't be surprised if that support extends into other areas of the Order by the time we reach Coruscant."

That brought Padme up short. Her anger fizzled as her mind tried to process the information. Master Qui-Gon had urged Padme (technically he had spoken to Rabe but Padme had been in the room) to issue a moratorium on communication signals in an attempt to mask their location from detection by the Trade Federation. As such, she had assumed that they would arrive unannounced at Coruscant. Now, the prospect of at least part of the Jedi Order working to prepare for their arrival was a boon she did not expect, even if it was simply their library. This 'Master Yaddle', however, seemed to wield a good deal of influence within the Order. Padme assumed that she too was part of the Archives but that begged the question as to why the library held so much sway.

The Queen put down her electrospanner and moved to the bench against the wall of the rear terrace of the Skywalker apartment. Harry followed her. He seated himself next to her and patiently waited as she analyzed the situation. She was grateful for both the quiet and his patience. Upon her election, Padme's court had quickly learned not to rush her. She needed quiet to asses the situation and come to her own conclusions. After a minute or two of watching Anakin wage war against a damaged power coupling, she resumed her discussion.

"I am sure her Highness will be pleased to hear that someone is preparing for her arrival," she said, playing out her public illusion of a handmaiden. Harry shot her an amused sidelong glance but said nothing, "I assume Master Yaddle is part of the archives. If you don't mind me asking, why is a librarian so influential?" Harry gave a bark of a laugh.

"Sorry," he said at her somewhat affronted look, "I'm not laughing at you. I guess she could be called a librarian from a certain point of view," he chuckled again, "but I guess that would be similar to calling the Supreme Chancelor a government worker," Padme's confusion must have shown on her face because Harry explained what he meant, "Master Yaddle is the second oldest member of the Jedi Order,  _the_  definitive expert in the more mystical Force techniques which can be utilized by the Jedi and is one of the most respected swordsmen with her chosen style, second only to Grandmaster Yoda himself. As the head of the Archives, she has taken it upon herself to personally have a hand in the education of every Jedi to be trained at the Coruscant Temple in the past two hundred years and has absolute control of every piece of information which enters or leaves the possession of the Jedi Order. While there are many other Jedi Masters who wield a greater authority in the wider galaxy, Master Yaddle is one of the living hearts of the Order," Harry's eyes shone with pride at Master Yaddle's accomplishments and he wore a loving smile which melted Padme's heart just a little bit.

"She seems very important to you," the girl observed softly. Harry nodded.

"I was her Padawan, just as Obi-Wan is Master Qui-Gon's. She's my family," the Jedi shrugged, "If there is anyone in the Order who can guide  _the Queen_ ," he shot her another sidelong glance, "though the quagmire of Senate procedure, precedent and political climate, it is Master Yaddle. You'll need all the help you can get, this issue with the Trade Federation is much,  _much_  larger than simply the Invasion of Naboo and you will encounter resistance disproportionate to a simple trade dispute."

"What are you trying to say?" Padme asked with narrowed eyes. How dare he downplay the suffering of her people. The Jedi must have recognized her anger for what it was because he raised his hands placatingly.

"I am not saying anything to demean your situation. I-" he cut himself off and subtly looked around. He held up his index finger in the universal sign of 'give me a second'. In an economy of movement, he slid his left hand into this right sleeve and withdrew the length of wood which Padme had spied during their liberation of the Royal Yacht. Up close, she could see that it was much more than a simple stick. At one point it appeared to have been carved, but time and handling had worn down much of the definition. She could make out knobs or berries had been carved into the rod at somewhat regular intervals. A smaller, handle-like section of bumps were separated from the primary length by an off-white ring which appeared to be made of bone. Padme could make out minuscule characters carved into this bone.

The Jedi subtly pointed it at the ground and softly muttered a few words. He twirled the tip of the rod in a small circle and flicked it in each of the cardinal directions. For a moment, Padme's hearing became muffled, as if hearing the sounds of the world around her through a thick blanket, before reverting to normal.

"What was that?" the queen asked, confused.

"My species possesses a unique ability to channel the Force in special ways through certain focusing materials. I used my wand to channel the Force in such a way that only you may hear what I am about to say," she raised an eyebrow at that, not for the display of power but the need for such secrecy. The Jedi seemed to catch on to this train of thought because he explained, "Could you fully blame someone to do anything to get out of a truly desperate situation? To the right people, this information could by the freedom of not only themselves but also their families. If it gets out, I could only blame myself."

Padme wanted to object on behalf of Anakin and Shmi, but as her gaze wandered over to the boy she noticed that he was now being teased by a group of what seemed to be his friends. She while the majority of them were engrossed by Anakin's antics with the podracer, a human girl and a young rodian were watching them with somewhat calculating stares. She wondered if Anakin had said something about them or if they were simply wary of strangers. A couple of housing units down, a trio of women were scrubbing small machine parts with abrasive, gossiping quietly. Every so often, one of the women would turn her head to glance at them and say something to her companions who would, in turn, nod solemnly as if agreeing.

As much as Padme prized her honor and morals, she could not say what she would do in their positions. Slavery was a concept completely foreign to her. She had reduced it to an intellectual construct. An evil to be combated in debates in the Senate and interplanetary treaties. Even in her limited experience with Anakin and Shmi, she knew that the practice could be much, much worse. She suppressed a shiver at the possibility of such a loving family being forced into such horrors.

"The Trade Federation, among others, has been under investigation by the Order for over a decade," Harry's voice brought the Queen's attention back to the matter at hand, "We have become aware of sprawling network of influence across the galaxy. We do not know the entire extent and there is little to no hard evidence of direct collusion, but it causes somewhat small events to make ripples in the wider galaxy which quickly snowball to the benefit of certain conglomerates acting on the fringes of legality. We do not believe any one of these entities to be the one at the center of this web. They are all being played, either in concert or against each other by a third party," Harry paused to sip from his belt canteen.

"The Order has been working closely with Chancellor Valorum on the investigation. At first, we were wary of including the Chancellor due to the fact that there was evidence of someone close to the Senate being part of this ring. We theorized that he or she may be within the Chancellor's sphere of influence and we did not want our investigation from being leaked without a solid base of evidence. About four years ago, there was an attempted assassination on the Chancellor," Padme's mouth went dry at the prospect, "Meditation on the will of the Force brought us to the conclusion that he must be made aware of the situation. We read him into the investigation and have halted six additional attempts since then," Harry sighed.

"In all honesty, Padme, when you step foot on Coruscant you are stepping into a much larger war than just the invasion of Naboo. Over the past decade, over a billion lives have lost their lives in one conflict or another in connection with this organization and those are only the deaths that the Order knows about. There is evidence that it extends much further back in history."

Padme felt weak. In all honesty, she was glad she was sitting down. One billion. That approximately one and a half times the population of Naboo. She couldn't really wrap her head around it. She wouldn't ask why. She already knew. She already had experienced it in her predecessor. The reason was simply greed: greed for wealth; greed for power; the all-consuming desire for  _more_  that ruined the lives of all who stood in the path of obtaining that which they do not have. To simply live in contentment was a foreign concept for some people. This greed, however, was so much more monstrous than Veruna's simple greed for wealth. This was a greed for something intangible, something which was nothing more than unending desire for absolute power. There could be no tangible reward for the one who pulled the strings of this shadowy organization. It was simply not possible.

Padme loved Naboo and her people loved her (at least according to eighty-six percent of Naboo's electorate). She would give her life for her people. This, however was something far greater than her small planet. This was a cause that would effect every sentient in the galaxy. Such depravity would not just stop at power of this world or that system. It was all-consuming. Her duty as a  _person_  demanded her effort to halt this atrocity and as a  _Queen_  she had the power to make a difference.

"What can I do to help?" Padme pinned Harry with a determined glare, "What can  _Naboo_  do to help?"

Harry stared at her, seemingly searching for something. Gradually, a soft smile graced his lips.

"Do exactly what you are doing, but think bigger" Padme blinked and Harry explained, "I was attended some of your addresses while I was on the planet," a somewhat embarrassed blush graced her cheeks as she remembered some of her more fiery speeches over the past few months. Her anger at the situation had bled through and shattered the image of a serene diplomat she had crafted during her election. The news-holos had recently dubbed her the 'Firebrand Queen' not without good reason, "'Let us not give in to the oppression of galactic bullies,'" Harry quoted from one of her more popular speeches at the onset of the blockade, one which had been broadcast in full on the galaxy-wide Republic News Service, "'We Naboo live our belief of non-violence but no one shall call us cowards. We stand defiant in the face of tyranny and greed. Naboo is the voice of peace. Naboo is the voice of unity. Our voice in defiance of oppression will ring through the galaxy long after our children's children have come and gone. Let our actions shine as an example to others.  _We_  shall not be moved.  _Naboo_  shall not be shaken!'" By the end of the quote, Padme could feel her cheeks burn embarrassment, "You were quite good."

"I was angry," she mumbled in explanation as she suddenly found her folded hands in her lap extremely fascinating. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harry shake his head.

"No, no. We  _need_ that anger," she looked up, surprise, "The greatest threat to this organization is interplanetary unity and peace. With the coverage of this blockade, you have just found yourself in the best position to cause this change to the galaxy."

"But the Senate-" she trailed off as she saw Harry shake his head again.

"The Senate, whether we like it or not, is mired with corruption," Harry held up a hand to stave off her inevitable comment on the virtues of democracy, "I do not doubt that there are Senators who work for the good of all but one corrupt Senator can undo the work of ten good ones. The public opinion in much of the Galaxy is that the Senate is largely ineffective. But  _you_ , you are completely independent of that corruption and have captured the galaxy's interest. Whether or not you can actually force the Senate to act, you will become something larger than life in much of the galaxy's eyes. You will become a symbol of hope. Hope for a change and hope for a better life, whatever that life will be," he looked over to Anakin, "After all this is over and Naboo is liberated," he glanced sidelong at Padme with a knowing smile, "and Naboo  _will_  be liberated, speak on your experience and inspire others by your example. Become an interplanetary voice for change. Once Naboo recovers, reach out to the larger galaxy."

"I thought you said that you hated politics?" the Queen asked. He gave a self depreciating shrug.

"I do. It doesn't mean that I'm not good at it. I just don't like being the one dealing with the minutia. I don't have the patience."

The two settled into an amicable silence as Padme turned his words over in her head. They gave her hope. Not just for Naboo but for the galaxy as a whole. She had volunteered a good deal before her election in the Refugee Relief movement so service outside of Naboo was nothing new to her. The thought of a monarch helping out alongside everyone else was definitely something attractive and would promote interplanetary unity amongst peoples but she had a feeling that Harry meant something beyond that role: a figurehead leading the charge for change. She had some experience in her election campaign, but a great deal of that had been the work of her local campaign managers. It also helped that she happened to be running against a minion of Veruna who was almost as hated as the King himself. But that was Naboo. She  _knew_ Naboo. She knew what drove the everyday men and women in the streets because she had grown up with them. Could she do that for the large galaxy, for other cultures?

Yes. That was her answer. She could. With few exceptions, everyone strove for basic concepts in their daily lives: sustenance, shelter, liberty, purpose, respect and happiness. Life was a universal concept.

"So," Harry began after a few minutes of comfortable silence watching Anakin tinker with his podracer as his friends looked on, "What was this about a race?"

Padme's sour mood returned as quickly as it had fled. She glared at Harry and related the events which had transpired in his absence.

**_No one_**  was going to take her yacht.

* * *

 

Harry sighed to himself as he sliced a cucumber. He had heard the rumors surrounding Master Jinn's seemingly random actions reportedly guided by the Force, but Harry had originally thought them somewhat of exaggerations. Now he knew that the stories were being somewhat kind. He trusted that Jinn was acting on the Living Force. Harry was no expert by far on the Living Force, even before his connection to it was severely damaged by possessing the Deathly Hallows. His specialty was based more in the Cosmic and Unifying Force, but even he understood that the Living Force only concerned itself with the present and had no way to see the outcome of an action. All future outcomes relied on the Unifying Force and thus, it was simply not possible for Jinn to understand the outcomes of his actions past the general feeling that it would be alright in the end, whether that end would be them winning the bet or the entire royal party hitchhiking to Coruscant as refugees. When he had confronted Jinn in private about his escapades, Harry had offered his assistance in making sure that Anakin would win the race. Jinn had outright forbade him from interfering. As a knight, Harry could not disobey a direct order from the Master. It wasn't like he was going to kill the other contestants. He had been thinking more along the lines of leaking fuel cells, unbalanced stabilizers or corroded power couplings. Cheating was rampant in these sort of races and it wasn't against the rules if you didn't get caught. And Harry  _wouldn't_  get caught.

Cooking always relaxed him. As a woman proud of her elfin heritage, Yaddle had made sure to instruct her progeny in the arts of her clan. Clan Yad was famous for its chefs and as such, Yaddle had made sure that Harry spent plenty of time in the Hogwarts kitchens learning her clan's trade from the venerable elders of her clan who oversaw the culinary work of the school with an iron fist, watchful eye and  _very_  sharp knives.

When he witnessed Shmi's veiled panic at the prospect of feeding yet another mouth, Harry stepped in. By Shmi's own thin appearance, it seemed that there was not necessarily an excess of food available to the family and even one extra mouth, let alone four, would have been a draw on their resources. Thus, Harry had stepped in with an offer to cook for the family with a song and dance about Terran hospitality to convince the caring woman to accept his gift of food. Technically, he hadn't outright lied. It was the truth from a certain point of view, as Obi-Wan was fond of saying. It was just that he had stretched the truth to just shy of breaking.

He had enough Terran edibles in his expanded belt satchel to feed ten times their number and still have food left over. The elves of Hogwarts had secretly stuffed the bag full to bursting of food when they had colluded with Yaddle to smuggle him out of the system. He had only realized this when, halfway to Naboo, he had opened his ration compartment only to have a raw chicken shoot out and smack him in the face. His master had found the situation utterly hilarious when he had first holocalled from Naboo.

Now, Harry was cooking a four course Terran meal of his favorites for the small family and their guests. He had done a quick blood test with the permission of all who would be dining for a quick check of possible allergies. He was extremely glad he had done so, as it turned out that Binks was allergic to citrus. That had nixed his plan for a treacle tart for dessert.

With a prod of his mind, the door to the kitchen's small oven opened and the finished vanilla cake swapped itself out for a prepared beef wellington. The Jedi set the cucumber slices down in a small bowl alongside the rest of the components for their starter salad to fully concentrate on the cake. Normally, he was pants at frosting a cake. For some reason, it always came out lopsided for him or the cake tore on it's way out of the pan. That, however had been under the diligent eye of Yaddy, Hogwart's head pastry chef. In his eyes the artistry that was cake decorating could only be done by hand. The one time Harry had tried to frost a cake using the Force he had nimbly jumped up onto the counter and walloped Harry on the forehead with his wooden spoon. Never again did Harry attempt it in the little elf's kitchen and the bruise had decorated Harry's forehead as a reminder of his heresy for over a week.

Now, outside of Yaddy's tyrannical kitchen, Harry gently separated the cake from the pan with his mind. Not even allowing a single crumb to stick to the metal baking dish. The pale brown chocolate frosting came in a fluid wave from the mixing bowl on the counter to cover the sides and top of the pastry. This was infinitely easier than doing it by hand. With a pull of his mind, the frosting churned, forming itself into images of different Terran flowers: a rose here, a lily there, small buds of baby's breath decorated the edge while vines of ivy separated each decoration.

Harry blinked. As scary as the thought was, Yaddy had actually been right. There was no artistry in this. He did not feel any pride at the achievement. With a grumble about elves who knew too much for their own good, he settled the cake down on a platter and picked up a spatula. While a lopsided and lumpy cake wouldn't look as nice, he would feel better about himself than if he were complemented for something that took absolutely no effort.

A subtle sensation in the Force caused him to reach out and shoved the frosting bowl further back on the counter.

"That's for dessert," Harry told the boy who had sneaked into the kitchen when his back had been turned, "You can taste it when dinner is finished." Harry turned around to see a wide-eyed Anakin frozen in the shock of getting caught, his finger still extended into the space where the frosting bowl had recently occupied.

The odd sensation was back. It was not the overpowering force hypersensitivity. That had vanished when Padme had introduced him to Anakin after she had filled Harry in on the situation with the bet. No, this was a nagging familiarity which lurked in the back of his mind. It slightly felt like Terra, like the ebb and flow of the Force which bubbled beneath the skin of every Ma'jaii. Harry had made sure to check if the boy had any Ma'jaii ancestry when he had run the blood test to check for allergies. The Terran species  _could_  produce children with humans or even near-human species so it was possible, if not very probably due to Ma'jaii's tendency for seclusion. The results, however, had come back one hundred percent human, which was puzzling.

Anakin must have realized he was still holding his finger in the air for he nonchalantly reached over to pluck a pallie from a bowl against the wall as if that had been his original intention all along.

"What are you making?" the boy asked, subtly sniffing the air. His eyes flickered between the soup pot simmering on the stove, the mound of the beef wellington in the oven illuminated by the soft glow of the heating element, and the lumpy frosted cake on the counter. A quick glance at the components of the salad resulted in a disgusted twitch of Anakin's nose, showing Harry the full extent of the nine-year-old's dislike for raw vegetables.

"Well," Harry began, amused at the seemingly universal dislike of children for vegetables, "I'm making a full Terran meal. First, we have a tossed salad," Harry pointed at said greens and received another disgruntled twitch from the boy, "then, there is butternut squash soup," Harry lifted the lid of the bubbling soup pot and Harry hid a smile at the interested face Anakin made when the smell hit his nose. The Jedi would tell the boy it was almost all vegetables  _after_ he had consumed his bowl, "Then we have something called beef wellington, which is a cut of meat from a Terran animal called a cow wrapped in dough and spices," Anakin's eyes went wide, "and then we have a simple cake for dessert," Harry gestured at his lumpy creation.

"We're gonna have meat?" Anakin seemed to tremble in excitement. Harry could only nod, perplexed, "Yippee!" Anakin's squeal of joy caught Harry by surprise. The boy threw his piece of fruit back into its bowl and rushed over to the oven. He plopped himself down on the floor to watch the beef wellington beginning to brown, "You must be rich, mister! I've only had meat a few times and it was  _really_  good. Watto only gives us some when I help him make a  _big_  sale. It's always womp rat, but mom knows how to cook it so we don't get sick. Does it taste anything like womp rat?" the boy looked up at the Jedi from his place on the floor and Harry blinked down at him for a moment, trying to process the boy's rapid fire speech patterns, before squatting himself down next to Anakin.

"Well, I've never had womp rat before, so you'll have to tell me," Harry reached into his belt satchel and called a piece of beef jerky to his hand from his ration compartment. He withdrew the piece from the bag and unbelievably, Anakin's eyes grew even larger. He took the piece from the Jedi's hands and stared at it as if it were a treasure.

"Is it already cooked? Do I have to do anything to make it safe to eat?" He glanced up at Harry and the Jedi felt his heart break a little. Having been adopted into the Yad clan through Yaddle, Harry had a special place in his heart for feeding people. Food was an important part of the Yads' culture and tradition. The Yads served food in an attempt to give part of their own lives to others in sustenance. It hurt to think that such a small gift of food was so precious to a child.

"You can eat it as is. Beef isn't poisonous. This piece has been smoked and dried so that it can last for years before you eat it," Harry watched as Anakin nibbled on a corner. He chewed the tough meat carefully and swallowed. His gaze flickered back and forth between the chunk of jerky in his hand and Harry.

"This is  _so_  much better than womp rat," he said in wonder. The boy took a few more small bites, chewing happily before he paused and looked thoughtfully at the remaining half of the jerky, "I-" Anakin began, "I probably should save it for later. You said that it will last for a while and we will be having more tonight. I want it to last," he looked longingly at the small piece of meat before moving to stow it in his pocket. Harry stopped him by placing his right hand on the boy's shoulder, the other reaching into his belt satchel. He called out in the Force and a box zoomed into his hand. He withdrew the sizable container from his satchel and the boy stared in wonder as the laws of space were seemingly defied as what exited the satchel was a good deal larger than the satchel itself.

"You can finish that jerky if you want," he handed the container to Anakin, still somewhat in shock at its appearance, "There is a lot more in here. There's different types too," Harry opened the lid to display all of its various compartments to the boy and pointed various ones out to the boy, "Here's the beef which you tried. And here's chicken, a type of bird; and pork; and ostrich, a very large type of bird which doesn't fly. Oh and here's mooncalf, if ever you're really hurt or sick, eat some of this and it will help you get better quickly. And here," he drew out a small chunk of meat that was a vibrant green, "is my favorite. It's very special," he leaned in close to Anakin and lowered his voice conspiratorially, "do you know why?" Anakin shook his head, a smile beginning to form on his face as he got over his shock, "it's  _dragon_ jerky."

Harry popped the tidbit of meat into his mouth, chewed the tasty hunk of tough meat quickly and swallowed. He held up a finger in a 'just-a-moment' gesture before he felt the tell-tale rumbling in his stomach. The Jedi lifted his head back and released a great belch, shooting a half-meter jet of flames towards the ceiling.

* * *

 

That was how Shmi found them about half an hour later when she came to check if Harry needed any help. The main dish was cooling on the rack above the oven and both the boy and her newest guest were sitting on the floor, burping and shooting flames out of their mouths, a large container of dried meats open before them. She stood there blinking as the belching stopped and both boy and young man erupted into laughter. Slowly she exited the kitchen. She had seen plenty of odd occurrences while raising Anakin, but this had to be one of the strangest. The mother smiled softly to herself. As long as he didn't burn down their home, she was fine with it. He was her light in this dark life. His bright outlook on life was always a balm to her soul. Her miracle deserved all the happiness he could get.


End file.
